FIRE IN BABYLON - Director Stevan Riley - Film Review

 
As a West Indian growing up in 80’s inner city London it was a turbulent time. It was the Thatcher era of police harassment, racial abuse on football terraces and slim job prospects if you were black.

One shining light from this misery was the fact that as West Indians we took great comfort knowing that our team reigned supreme at cricket. As immigrants we may not had the capacity to overcome our colonial masters but we took enormous pride that stars like Clive Lloyd, Vivian Richards and Malcolm Marshall were able to do so on our behalf.

Stevan Riley’s Fire in Babylon delves into the beginnings of this supremacy and illustrates the far-reaching social and political consequences it had beyond the sport.

The documentary, via evocative match footage and charismatic narration by former players, shows a team transformed from being labelled as happy-go lucky cricketers into a side that ruthlessly ruled cricket for 15 years (1980-1995).

The catalyst was the West Indies’ humiliating defeat at the hands of Australia’s fast-bowling attack in 1975. With the side demoralised, captain Clive Lloyd took the radical step of using a four-man pace attack designed to fight fire with fire - with stunning results.

What Steven Riley’s does so well is the ease that he moves his film from being merely a sporting documentary into a commentary on the time, the people, the region of the West Indies and the political and racially charged atmosphere of the world that watched cricket.

The insight of stars of that generation revealed the racial abuse and vitriol they suffered in Australian from both spectators and opposition.

Touring England, players knew they were representing Caribbean immigrants whose only respite from their day-to-day struggles was seeing their cricketing brethren humiliate the ‘Mother Country’.

Riley’s engaging documentary moves at pace with an eclectic mix of Caribbean music, which provides the perfect accompaniment.

For me it is a nostalgic look into a period when West Indies was cricketing gods at a time of immense social and political upheaval.

This uplifting film will undoubtedly appeal to a non-cricketing audience. You may hate cricket but you’ll love Fire in Babylon.