I've come to the conclusion that any documentary that's rushed out to coincide with some other event is unlikely to be a success. Such is often the case with documentaries related to topics of hit movies, and it's the case with The Real Olympics, which hits the shelves just in time for the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Normally PBS does a very nice job with its documentaries, which is what prompted me to check this one out, but The Real Olympics is unfortunately not a whole lot more than a promotional puff piece for the Olympic Games.

The program gets off to a reasonably interesting start in the first fifteen minutes, as it provides a capsule history of the development of the original Olympics of antiquity, from its roots as a religious ceremony honoring Zeus to its zenith with a variety of sporting events including chariot racing, races, wrestling, and boxing. At this point, though, the program jumps ahead in time to the rebirth of the games in the 19th century as the modern Olympic Games. From here onward, The Real Olympics skips back and forth among the ancient, Victorian, and modern versions of the games, with no clear structure or coherent narrative to hold everything together.

While it's irritating enough that there's no real structure to the documentary, the worst part of The Real Olympics is how much the same information is repeated. Throughout the 110-minute program, we return again and again to the same topics, such as the religious nature of the original games, the Greek focus on victory over all else, and the physical brutality of the games. The filmed re-enactments of the early games are also recycled, with the same footage being used on various occasions throughout the documentary. All in all, it's one of the most obviously puffed-up documentaries I've seen.

Some interesting tid-bits of information surface when the program discusses how the games have been a forum for nationalism, such as the little-publicized fact that it was Nazi Germany, in the Berlin games, who came up with the now-iconic image of the Olympic torch being passed from runner to runner before finally lighting the main torch at the stadium. It's also interesting to see just how much the Victorian idea of "amateurism" was really based on a desire to exclude the working classes.

But overall, it's quite clear that the whole point of The Real Olympics is to celebrate the greatness of the modern games. As such, we get a lot of earnest discussion of the differences between the ancient games, the revival of the games in modern form in the 1800s, and lastly the current form of the games. For instance, the "amateur vs. professional" debate takes the form of discussing which approach is more true to the original form of the ancient games. There are plenty of good arguments on either side of that debate, but to look to "what did the ancient Greeks do?" as the ultimate arbiter is missing quite a bit of the point. After all, one of the things that we learn from The Real Olympics is that the original games were brutally violent; if we abolished all rules of good sportsmanship, the modern games would certainly be more authentic, but I doubt many would think that was an improvement.

There are also a few areas where the program verges on inaccuracy, sometimes through inference and sometimes (more strikingly) through omission. In the first case, the documentary implies that the modern games are completely balanced in terms of men's and women's events, when in fact they are not (fencing, for instance, still does not have parity between men's and women's events), and it also implies that the switch from excluding professionals to including them happened all at once, when in fact different sports were opened to professionals at different times (for instance, the Olympic bicycling events only invited pros at the Atlanta games). These are minor details, but still, it would be nice for the program to have a high standard of accuracy.

More significantly, though, is the program's absolute silence on the issue of doping. Not a single word is mentioned at any time to even hint that athletes taking performance-enhancing drugs even occurs, much less constitutes one of the greatest problems in modern sports. It's not even mentioned when the program discusses how the Soviet Union dominated the Games with their cadre of athletes trained from childhood; the implication is that these athletes won their scores of medals because they were essentially "professionals" with a high level of training... when in reality, drugs played a sordid but essential role. Why isn't doping discussed? Undoubtedly because The Real Olympics is above all a feel-good promotional piece for the Olympic Games. It's too bad, because in sliding over to promotion rather than information, PBS has lowered its documentary standards considerably.

The DVD

Video

I'm pleased to report that The Real Olympics appears in an anamorphically-enhanced widescreen transfer, at the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The image is slightly soft overall, but it's clean and bright, with colors looking natural. All in all, it's pleasing to the eye.

Audio

The Dolby 2.0 soundtrack does a satisfactory job of capturing the elements of the documentary in a clean and pleasing manner. The voiceover narration and the various interviewees all come across sounding natural and clear, and are well balanced with the other elements of the track.

Extras

There are no special features.

Final thoughts

The Real Olympics contains some interesting information on the Olympics, both ancient and modern, and for that it's probably worth a rental for viewers who are particularly interested in the subject and haven't seen any other documentaries on the Olympics. Unfortunately, The Real Olympics falls below the standard of other PBS documentaries in terms of content quality; it's largely a promotional piece for the upcoming Athens 2004 Olympics, and it's marred by repeated content and a rambling structure. Rent it.