‘Olga’ drags you along with its heroine and could hardly have been more topical ★★★★☆

This is sport, not politics, says someone in the Swiss Oscar entry Olga against the gymnastic title heroine. For 15-year-old Ukrainian Olga (Anastasiia Budiashkina) it is impossible to separate one from the other. She trains continuously for the 2015 European Championship, while mother Ilona (Tanya Mikhina) is absorbed in her critical journalistic work. After the two narrowly escape an attack, Olga leaves for Switzerland, the country of her long-dead father. The idea is that she can continue training safely there.

But writer and director Elie Grappe makes it difficult for Olga in his first feature. Is she willing to exchange Ukrainian nationality for Swiss nationality so that she can join the Swiss European Championship team? How can she stay focused when the Orange Revolution erupts in her hometown of Kiev? Both Olga’s mother and former teammates join the bloody protests against President Yanukovych in Maidan Square. Olga is only a witness through films recorded on the spot, which she watches on her smartphone during the breaks.

Grappe contrasts these (authentic) images with the sports locations in Switzerland, for example by combining the chaotic sound of the revolution films with wide, clean overall shots of an almost empty gymnastics stadium. They seem to be completely separate realities, and it is precisely because of that razor-sharp contrast that you feel how hard they collide in Olga. Yet she continues to train doggedly, keeping in check not only her mother’s worries, but also the desire to go back.

Clever, how Grappe makes tangible what is at stake for Olga with every turning manoeuvre. How she tries to keep the balance in her body and in her feelings. In that regard, Olga a beautiful double bill form with Rogier Hesps gymnastics drama Gold (2020), also so that you can see how differently the energy, tension and beauty of gymnastics can be filmed: at Gold close to the skin, at Olga just a bit more distant, timeless and weightless. Like Hesp, Grappe benefits greatly from casting real pro athletes. As eloquent as the solemn face of debutant Anastasiia Budiashkina (representing Ukraine at the 2016 European Youth Championships), so compelling are Olga’s efforts to finally pull off the perfect Jaeger somersault.

Olga is here and there nagging, the scenario a bit forced. But Grappe undeniably drags you along with his heroine, in a film that could hardly have been more topical. The closing images, of a summery Maidan Square in 2020, feel particularly fragile with the current threat of a Russian invasion in mind.