Perhaps it is a question of two distinct spectacles reluctant to coalesce, perhaps it is because the language of one cannot be translated into the other, or perhaps it just cannot be done. In any case, cinema buffs who are also sports fans have had precious little, if not nothing, to savour in terms of truly great sport films.

youtube::RbJsy9MgFVw::

So when I saw the trailer for Fire in Babylon, I was sure that the moment had arrived – that we were about to see a great film made for a sports fan. Well, having watched it, I can tell you that Fire in Babylon is not that film.

But please, don’t ‘x’ out this window in a fit of bitter disappointment just yet – bear with me.

You see, this film is not for sports fans, but everyone else he/she knows.

It is for those people who don’t understand how sports can ever be something more meaningful than ‘war, minus-the-shooting’. It is for those people who feel that sports can never be elevated to the echelons we reserve for art, music and yes, even politics. It is for those people who refuse to believe that a group of men (or women) developed their skills and strategies to their logical and aesthetic extremes, and who can also stand as a symbol of pride and passion for an entire population of largely oppressed and degraded people.

Fire in Babylon, if you haven’t been exposed to the hype as yet, is a documentary about one of the greatest sporting teams of all time, across all disciplines – the mighty West Indies cricket team of the ’70s and ’80s. Anyone who follows and supports cricket, who lives and breathes it, considers this team as the Holy Grail – the epitome of both substance and style.

Which is why perhaps, it makes sense that the film barely speaks to this demographic.

It plays quick and loose with cricket’s nuances – you could be forgiven for walking away from the film not knowing what exactly it was Viv Richards did on the playing field. You could be excused for thinking that smacking batsmen on the head is an inevitable and oft-repeated part of the game.

But that is not the film’s point.

This film, instead, is about celebrating a moment –  a moment which happened because of cricket, but whose stature and relevance lies in its ability to show a people that they no longer had to apologise for themselves, that they didn’t need to make excuses for who they were, and they had no need to keep questioning their own worth.

And most importantly, this isn’t just a polemical discourse masquerading as a documentary on cricket.

The very first moment you hear King Viv’s rich voice, richer than all the treasures in all the fables, you feel happiness. And when you see the innumerable times overweight and arrogant batsmen are laid asunder with fast bowling thunderbolts, that feeling soars to a point where you find yourself giggling like a child on a sugar-high.

There is a profound joy to be had when you listen to Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts, Colin Croft, Clive Lloyd, and King Viv himself detail their motivations and inspirations in their intoxicating Caribbean drawls. There is delight when you see Holding’s whispering death run-up broken down into frames, and then replayed with all its silken-smooth ferocity. Your skin crawls with excitement when you see the Windies knock Australian and English teams off their arrogant perch.

But unfortunately, those moments don’t seem to be enough.

At first, I rationalised that this was because the film was meant to stand as a film in of its own self – that it needed to provide a narrative, intriguing characters, a beginning and an end, while still explaining what cricket meant to an audience which might not know it.

But later, I realised that this film could never be enough. This was an attempt to capture the greatest team of all time – no fan could walk away from it feeling satisfied.