FIGHTVILLE (Petra Epperlein, Michael Tucker, USA). 85 minutes. Rating: NNNN
Weaving moments of psychological insight into a crowd-pleasing underdog narrative, Fightville offers fans of mixed martial arts an energetic look behind the scenes of their beloved sport, while still functioning as an incisive documentary. Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker, directors of Gunner Palace and The Prisoner, Or: How I Planned To Kill Tony Blair, examine the MMA circuit in Louisville through the eyes of up-and-coming fighters Dustin Poirier and Albert Stainback.
Using tiny digital cameras, the directors capture intense footage of the matches, but they’re equally good at getting close to the fighters and their coaches outside the ring, as we see when Stainback shares a harrowing memory of domestic abuse without seeming to understand how his past has led him to adopt a stage persona borrowed from the droogs in A Clockwork Orange.
It’s not for the squeamish – the cage matches get pretty messy – but just about everyone else should find something to appreciate.
