A true story from recent history that neatly plays into plucky underdog sports-drama tropes, Kalev revisits a politically charged basketball contest that became entangled in the messy collapse of the Soviet Union 30 years ago. A competent but unremarkable effort by first-time feature director Ove Musting, Estonia’s official submission to the Academy Awards is mostly notable as a depressingly timely critique of Russia’s perennially abusive, bullying, colonialist attitude towards neighbouring nations: for the Baltic states in 1991, read Ukraine in 2022.
Indeed, this timely resonance helps explain why Kalev has been chosen for Oscar consideration, as a pointed protest against ongoing Russian imperialism from a tiny frontline nation that spent 40 years under Soviet occupation, and remains bravely defiant towards Putin today. That said, judged on purely cinematic grounds, it feels flat and conventional, never quite shaking off the feel of a provincial sports biopic to strike a deeper, more universal chord. Estonia has a strong track record of Academy Awards submissions over the last decade, earning a nomination with Tangerines (2014) and a shortlist slot with Truth and Justice (2019). Musting’s film is a minor addition to that canon, more interesting for its urgent political currency than for its underlying dramatic qualities, but it lack the emotional punch and aesthetic verve needed to score much of an international impact.
Musting tells this story through a handful of characters, all a little too broadly drawn to be much more than ciphers. A young star player for Estonia’s national basketball team KK Kalev, Aivar Kuusmaa (Reimo Sagor) shoulders most of the narrative focus as a genial but anodyne hero, the blond leading the bland. More psychologically interesting is Gert Kullamäe (Mihkel Kuusk), an aspiring substitute player forever watching from the sidelines, quietly seething as he awaits his chance to shine. And Jaak Salumets (Mait Malmsten) is the wily, tough-talking, old-school coach struggling to keep team morale up while he wrestles with some thorny moral and political dilemmas.
After years of hard graft and near misses, the Kalev team now has a decent shot at winning the Soviet Union’s Premier Basketball League championship. Meanwhile, Cold War tensions are heating up on the Russian border as the old Communist Eastern Bloc starts to disintegrate. Already thirsty for independence, Estonians are enraged as Russian sabre-rattling erupts into violence in neighbouring Baltic states, notably on “Bloody Sunday” in Lithuania in January 1991, when Soviet tanks attempt to strangle the newly emancipated state, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more. Musting keeps these broader political events off screen, relegated to background news reports, which makes sense for narrative cohesion but misses an obvious opportunity for extra dramatic impact.
When hostile media pundits brand the Kalev team “traitors” and “collaborators” for continuing to play in a tainted, blood-soaked Soviet contest, they become targets for anonymous threats and acts of vandalism. Their hiring of a Russian player, Sergei Babenko (Jekabs Reinis), lends extra bite to this criticism. “We’re not a tank unit, we play basketball!” Kullamäe protests. After months of agonising, Salumets takes the painful decision to drop out of the competition, but Lithuanian team member Pranas Mickevicius (Andris Keiss) changes his mind, insisting it is now more vital than ever that Estonia must play to win against their imperialist neighbour. David must defeat Goliath. Sport becomes war by other means.
Swept along by emotionally didactic music and literal-minded, overly explanatory dialogue, Kalev is a stirring underdog yarn, but it has little room for subtlety or ambiguity. While Musting shoots the basketball scenes with impressively kinetic, dynamic energy, his brave Baltic heroes are never depicted as anything other than noble heroes, even when they stoop to bribing a rival Russian team to deliberately lose a game. “What damn times are these where even the good guys have to cheat and lie?” Salumets fumes.
Russia, meanwhile, is portrayed as a corrupt and impoverished purgatory where sporting officials and police officers openly use blackmail, bribery and threats against their opponents. By all accounts, this is a fairly accurate snapshot of the ailing Soviet Union, and not far removed from Putin’s gangster empire today, but a more intellectually curious and emotionally generous film might have interrogated more deeply how and why the whole system got so rotten. Kalev scores an easy slam-dunk against an eternal enemy, but this could have been a wiser and deeper story, shedding light on the ongoing tragedies of Russia alongside the small triumphs of Estonia.
Director: Ove Musting
Sceenwriters: Martin Algus, Ove Musting, Mehis Pihla
Cast: Mait Malmsten, Reimo Sagor, Priit Võigemast, Mihkel Kuusk, Ott Kartau, Veiko Porkanen, Kristjan Sarv, Siim Maaten, Arturs Putnins, Howard Frier, Jonathan Peterson, Rauno Polman, Mathias Leedo, Andris Keiss, Jekabs Reinis
Producers: Pille Rünk, Maria Avdjushko
Cinematography: Rein Kotov
Editing: Rein Kotov, Jaak Ollino Jr.
Music: Mihkel Zilmer
Allfilm (Estonia),Ugri Film (Estonia)
In Estonian, Russian
91 minutes
