Erik Shirai's ESPN-produced Venice premiere follows a year in the lives of several men at ascending and descending stages of their relatively short sumo careers.
By Guy Lodge
Plus IconGuy Lodge
Film Critic
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ESPN Films The title of “Sumo: Spirit Weighs Nothing” is the closest that Erik Shirai‘s documentary comes to a joke at the expense of its subject: sumo wrestling, the Japanese sport largely known in the western world for the ample size and minimal clothing of its practitioners, and not an awful lot beyond that. In all other respects, however, this stately, artfully produced film aims to act as a corrective to such cheap, culturally insensitive perceptions. Examining as it does the motivations and ambitions of a number of sumo wrestlers, from grand masters to rising stars, through a solemnly respectful lens, the doc finds humanity and even beauty in what can all too easily be comically framed on screen.
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