What happens when an Oscar winner accompanies a boxing world champion in his political clash? The Sky documentary “Klitschko – His Toughest Fight” provides the answer. Warning: This film could touch you emotionally and give you a new perspective on Ukraine’s defensive battle.
He is 2.01 meters tall. His fighting weight is 112 kilograms. His reach is given as 203 centimeters. His knockout rate is 91 percent. Vitali Klitschko, 48, now has 98 minutes of film. The lone fighter with his fists has dared to make the leap to team sport in politics.
“Dr. Ironfist” has been mayor of Kyiv since 2014, and a mayor at war since February 24, 2022 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. For many months, Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald (“One Day in September”) accompanied him with the camera for the Sky documentary “Klitschko – The Hardest Fight”. From September 13, the co-production by Docsville Studios, Broadview Pictures and Sky Studios can be seen exclusively on Sky and the streaming service WOW. It’s worth it: visually and emotionally, it brings the viewer into close proximity to a hero who grows to XXXL size here – whether happy or tragic: the film leaves that open.
“He only fights with his heart!”
Anyone who has seen boxer Vitali Klitschko in the ring knows that muscles and strength, size and reach are advantages; brain and heart are what matter. How this heart works in boxer Klitschko is revealed in his fight against Lennox Lewis.
It is June 21, 2003. Vitali Klitschko enters the ring at the Staples Center in Los Angeles as an underdog. What will go down in boxing history as the “Battle of the Titans” begins. Klitschko starts offensively, he hits well and hard. Lennox Lewis staggers, and does so more than once. In the third round, a punch tears open Klitschko’s eyebrow. Cut above the eye, blood on his face, blood in his field of vision. “He can’t see anything anymore, he’s only fighting with his heart,” the commentator cheers, “Klitschko is the likely winner of this fight!”
Then the referee stops. The audience celebrates the loser Klitschko. Ten years later, he will end his career without ever being knocked out. His two sons confirm this to the audience: “His motto in life is – failure is not an option!”
Images that no viewer can escape
We see these other cuts, the ones that cost a lot more blood. There is a wound in the city of Kiev, eleventh floor, the side of a high-rise building torn open. It is quiet as Mayor Vitali Klitschko, always a head taller, walks through the mourners. Kiev again, 2023. People on the run, the noise of explosions chases them through the streets of the city and down into the subways. We see fields of rubble, injured, dead. Klitschko bends down to comfort the weeping and children. “Everything will be fine,” he says.
He says it often. It is these encounters that can move you to tears because they make you feel what this war and the daily killing mean for the people of Ukraine. A memorial service for fallen soldiers: the mayor awards steel crosses to the bereaved. Again and again he hugs, again and again he bends down to children. “Your father was a real hero,” he says, “a real hero.” Then the camera moves to individual graves of these heroes. Then it pans over cemeteries. Then over entire burial grounds: heroes and more and more heroes: Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald creates images that the viewer cannot escape.
The fight against the enemy from within our own ranks
There is another fight that Vitali Klitschko has to fight. The first round begins at a time when Volodymyr Selenskyj is still a comedian. In his TV show, he repeatedly makes fun of Klitschko, the clumsy man who stumbles from one faux pas to the next. When the mayor of Kyiv is asked on camera about his relationship with the current president of Ukraine, he answers curtly: “We have no relationship.” He makes a face as if he is about to throw a liver punch.
The President of Ukraine against the Mayor of Kiev: This is a fight without fairness and without rules. A nine-year-old girl has just died in a Russian missile attack because a bunker door was locked. In front of television cameras, Zelenskyj blames the mayor for the locked shelter and thus directly for the death of the nine-year-old. “This is the specific task of the mayor’s office,” he says.
He doesn’t want to mention Klitschko’s name. It makes it more infamous. He alludes to the boxer. He speaks of a “knockout”. Vitali Klitschko also avoids mentioning his opponent’s name. He makes it clear in more abstract sentences: “Politics in this country – well, it’s murky waters.” The current government turmoil with the resignation requests of nine ministers makes this sentence particularly topical.
“Are you sure you really need all this?”
Towards the end of the almost 100 minutes, the documentary takes the viewer into Vitali Klitschko’s kitchen. He is just putting a bowl in the microwave. Then the mayor-boxer rests his arms on the table. “My wardrobe has a mirror,” he says between two spoons, “and I often look at myself in it and ask myself: are you sure you really need all this?” Vitali Klitschko continues to spoon. “And the next morning, when I’m well rested, I say: you won’t give up that easily.” He smiles. He smiles very broadly.
