Monday, November 4, 2024

“LIFE IS NOT A COMPETITION, BUT I’M WINNING”

THE STORY – A collective of queer athletes enters the Olympic Stadium in Athens and sets out to honor those who were excluded from standing on the winners’ podium, hoping to create a radical utopia far from the rigid gender rules in competitive sports.

THE CAST – Annet Negesa, Amanda Reiter, Caitlin Fisher, Daniel Marin Medina, Chun Mei Tan, Eva Maria Jost, Jakob Levi Stahlberg, Oumou Aidara & Greta Graf

THE TEAM – Julia Fuhr Mann (Director/Writer)

THE RUNNING TIME – 79 Minutes


Julia Fuhr Mann’s “Life Is Not a Competition, But I’m Winning opens with a shot of a running track. Only two lanes are shown at first, separated by a white line. This separation represents the gender binary dominating sports until the track expands to full view to explain that you can’t put people in two boxes. We are in the Panathenaic Stadium, the birthplace of the Olympics in Athens. A group of queer athletes or athletes of color make up the documentary’s cast, and they are stepping on a track that they wouldn’t have been allowed to compete on in antiquity.

The cast of athletes speaks about how those on the margins must compete on multiple levels, not just on the track. They are constantly othered and attacked. One had to stop playing football because she was a woman. Another had to stop competing because she wasn’t woman enough. Now, throw sexuality on top of that, and you open a whole other debate. But why do committees like the IOC (International Olympic Committee) get to decide who can and who can’t compete based on their bodies? 

Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympic Games, was against women competing in the games, stating, “Female athletes act against the law of nature. This view is still relevant more than a century later as, in particular, women and trans women are put under the microscope. Calling to mind what was recently seen with Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, those who defy norms or ideas of what women can do are often questioned for their skills, resulting in misogynistic and transphobic (even racist) rhetoric. “Life Is Not a Competition, But I’m Winning looks at historical footage of female athletes in the past 100 years, with the cast often splicing themselves into this footage to create a link between history and an untold future: a future that has finally changed an outdated and discriminatory system. It’s a rallying cry for inclusivity and progress.

The documentary’s core cast of athletes is seated in Olympiastadion Berlin as TV crews set up to film a race. But this race isn’t what they’re interested in. Going back in time, putting themselves in footage of past Olympic games, we are introduced to extraordinary female athletes lost to history. First, in 1928, we meet Lina Radke, the first-ever female 800-meter champion. However, her win was overshadowed by another woman who fell after the race, the media focusing on the IOC’s response that the female body is too weak to compete. The 800-meter race is banned for the next 32 years. Radke never had an award ceremony.

Stella Walsh, one of the most decorated athletes from the 1930s, is an early mirror of what we continue to see today with athletes like Khelif. Walsh was so good that no one could honestly believe a woman could be that good. No one could believe that a woman could run faster than any man, as Walsh could. Her gender was put under a microscope as she was made to film training videos as though to prove her skills. It wasn’t until after her death that it was discovered that she was intersex. How do you handle an athlete between the sexes? You erase them. Feats by women continued to be examined with skepticism, and it became much harder when, in a segregated, male-dominated sports world, African American athletes like Wilma Rudolph were discriminated against for both gender and race. But Rudolph showed America what female athletes of color can do by becoming the first woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympic Games. 

Seeing these women compete doesn’t erase the violent structures they faced – but they continued to run and live despite it. This is still what female, queer, and BIPOC athletes are doing today. Their ambiguous bodies are seen to be an attack against the unambiguous. They are seen to contaminate an ideal that never actually existed. This idea of a perfect athlete’s body, most commonly attributed to Michael Phelps, can’t be attributed to a woman because they’re questioned even if they have slightly more prominent muscles. Genetic examinations and chromosome testing plague Olympic history. Today, women with high levels of testosterone aren’t allowed to compete, shattering the Olympic dreams of women like Caster Semenya and Annet Negesa, the latter featured prominently in this documentary.

“Life Is Not a Competition, But I’m Winning really impresses as a work that feels anything but traditional – fitting for a documentary that tramples on Olympic tradition. It incorporates some genuinely stunning imagery, and its style feels especially experimental for the genre. Weaved in with a beautifully transformed and dynamic tapestry of archival footage are personal testimonies that feel much more intimate because there are no talking head interviews. The film’s subjects tell their stories in narration as you see them doing what they do best: running. There are also moments where the cast gathers in reflection. We get to sit with them in that reflection and on the history with which we are presented.

Mann has created a truly essential documentary that celebrates the marginalized and their fight to reclaim sport as a space of true inclusivity. The Olympics were built to create male heroes, but they weren’t the true heroes. It’s those who continue to fight despite the discrimination endured for existing beyond the binary and the racist standards established in the marbled stadium of Athens. However, what Mann cleverly explains to illustrate the cracks in Olympic history is that much of the Panathenaic Stadium was made of wood, proving that it never had a solid framework. The same can be said for the Nazi-built Olympiastadion in Berlin, where the torch relay began. Made of stone intended to last an eternity, it’s now rotting; the stones are porous and crumbling. As the Olympic website states, the “spirit of the games is exemplified by a torch relay started by the worst of humanity. Soon, the foundation will collapse. The cracks already signal an unwritten future.

THE RECAP

THE GOOD - Impresses as a work that feels anything but traditional – fitting for a documentary that tramples on Olympic tradition. It weaves in a beautifully transformed and dynamic tapestry of archival footage with personal testimonies from female, queer, and BIPOC athletes. It also acts as an ode to forgotten athletes who paved the way.

THE BAD - Plays with a lot of ideas that can be overwhelming and doesn’t provide a proper introduction to its key players, to the point where you don’t know anyone’s names.

THE OSCAR PROSPECTS - None

THE FINAL SCORE - 8/10

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Sara Clements
Sara Clementshttps://nextbestpicture.com
Writes at Exclaim, Daily Dead, Bloody Disgusting, The Mary Sue & Digital Spy. GALECA Member.

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<b>THE GOOD - </b>Impresses as a work that feels anything but traditional – fitting for a documentary that tramples on Olympic tradition. It weaves in a beautifully transformed and dynamic tapestry of archival footage with personal testimonies from female, queer, and BIPOC athletes. It also acts as an ode to forgotten athletes who paved the way.<br><br> <b>THE BAD - </b>Plays with a lot of ideas that can be overwhelming and doesn’t provide a proper introduction to its key players, to the point where you don’t know anyone’s names.<br><br> <b>THE OSCAR PROSPECTS - </b>None<br><br> <b>THE FINAL SCORE - </b>8/10<br><br>"LIFE IS NOT A COMPETITION, BUT I'M WINNING"