Vice.com, purveyors of hedonistic smut and other grudgingly compelling content, have put together a four part documentary about London 2012. Called The Vice Guide To The Olympics, it's actually a 30-minute parade of critics, grouches, grumpians and disaffected voices from around the fringes of the Olympic Park.
At the media screening yesterday, the film makers were keen to stress how the negative aspects of the Games are rarely put across, and how their film hopes to partly redress the balance. We don't agree with this premise: sure, the official material singing the praises of the Games and their legacy would fill a couple of hundred Olympic-sized swimming pools, but there's also a huge body of high-profile work (in film, books, websites and news articles) detailing the less rosy aspects of hosting the Games.
The documentary's thrust, then, is nothing new, but it does include a first-rate cast of characters: from Olympic-Curmudgeon-in-Chief Iain Sinclair to a fellow who's got himself wrapped up in conspiracy theories about the coming Olympocalypse and the importance of the Mayan calendar. Star of the show is founder of the Design Museum Stephen Bayley, whose aesthetic sensibility leads him to burn one of the Olympic mascots.
Catch part 1 here, and follow the links to parts 2-4.
