Asif Kapadia, director of Senna, tells Sarfraz Manzoor how he spent four days in a chopper making a 'democratic' film about London and the Olympics
I meet Asif Kapadia in a bar on the 15th floor of a hotel in central London. The location offers panoramic views of the city below, making it an unintentionally appropriate place to discuss the director's latest film. The Odyssey, a rare joint commission by Film4 and BBC Films, is Kapadia's contribution to the London 2012 festival. (The director of the acclaimed 2010 documentary Senna is one of five film-makers, with Mike Leigh, Lynne Ramsay and StreetDance directing duo Max and Dania, to receive Olympic commissions.) Like the others', Kapadia's film is short, at just under 30 minutes, but ambitious in scope, charting the seven years since London won the bid. Since that day in July 2005, London has been bombed, bruised by the financial crisis and burned in last summer's riots.
"I wanted to create a realistic, honest and rounded portrait of the city," Kapadia says. "It was important to put the dark side in there: this is not the touristy London." Kapadia was born in London in 1972, to Indian Muslim parents, and grew up in a sport-mad family. "I remember watching the 1980 Olympics in the middle of the night," he recalls, "the perfect excuse to stay up late. I watched [100m gold medallist] Allan Wells in 1980 and Zola Budd in 1984. It's funny how all those misspent days and nights have become relevant."
He came to the 2012 project late and, without the time to embark on a drama, settled on a documentary format. The Odyssey combines new interviews with footage from previous Olympics, as well as a lot of aerial photography. The aim was a "God's eye" perspective on London, and the film is largely composed of sweeping shots of the city, its glittering financial heart, the bustle of Oxford Street.
"We spent four days filming in a helicopter," Kapadia says. "I had never seen London from that viewpoint – you get a sense of how big it is and how easy it is to get lost. There was one day when we couldn't find Brick Lane: we spent 25 minutes looking and then realised it was directly below us." As in Senna, Kapadia has eschewed talking heads; instead we hear the voices of politicians, pundits, sportsmen and street kids, without being told their names or anything else. "I wanted to democratise it, so whether it's the prime minister or a boy in Wood Green who just happens to be walking down the street, their view is equally valid."
To begin with, Kapadia conducted a series of ad hoc interviews near the Olympic site. He quickly discovered the limitations of such an approach ("every-body just moaned, and some didn't even know the Olympics were happening"); the rest of the interviews (with, among others, radio presenter Robert Elms and Olympics supremo Sebastian Coe) were conducted in a room near the editing suite where Kapadia then spent three months assembling his material.
The Odyssey does not shy away from the more troubling issues London currently faces – the closure of youth clubs, the fear that the Olympics won't benefit local communities – but the film is at heart optimistic and warm, adjectives that few would ascribe to Kapadia's earlier films. (The Warrior, set in Rajasthan, and Far North, filmed in the Arctic, were beautiful but emotionally chilly works that seemed more interested in technical perfection.) Kapadia attributes any shift in tone to fatherhood (he has two young sons) and getting older. "Since having kids, I don't give a shit what the image looks like – it if works emotionally, I am going to put it in," he says.
Besides all the original footage, there are moments that pack a powerful emotional punch, such as the archive clips of Jesse Owens in Berlin in 1936 , winning gold as Hitler looks on, and the black power salute of 1968. Kapadia's achievement is to put London's Games in a historical context, and to show us why we need them. "I love this city and I love the Olympics," he says. "And after all London has been through, we need a party to bring people together."
• The Odyssey screens at selected Picturehouse cinemas nationwide from 25 June. It, and the other London 2012 films, will be broadcast on Channel 4 and the BBC this summer.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/jun/24/asif-kapadia-odyssey-london-2012
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