Lionel

Synopsis: The life and times of Lionel Rose, world champion boxer, number one selling singer and Australia's first Aboriginal superstar.

I’d heard of Lionel Rose, but I didn’t know a lot about him. I knew he was a boxer, but I had no idea how big he was. Eddie Martin’s documentary takes you through his life, listens to his family, friends and business partners, and paints a portrait of a genuinely good bloke who walked down a few nasty detours and was able to walk back and onto a better path. It’s a great story, a young kid with natural talent is taken under the wing of a trainer who builds up his skill to as far as he can take him, and then with an amazing display of character, passes the promising young man onto someone who can take him further. And from there, Lionel went to Japan to face “Fighting” Harada, and in beating him he became the Bantamweight World Champion. A quarter of a million people came out to cheer Lionel Rose when he returned from Japan, and he became an overnight celebrity.

What impressed me most in this film was the unassuming nature of everyone involved. Lionel himself is a laid-back kind of guy, his trainers were decent men who looked after him, and his family and friends all keep a level head. Maybe it’s the benefit of time, but the impression given is that even when Lionel was at the height of his fame and wealth, he didn’t take it, or himself, too seriously. He laughs at the memory of singing and the hits that came with that unusual career detour (Johnny Young wrote one of his songs) But it also takes a look at what that lrelaxed attitude did for his boxing career, with his trainer speaking frankly about how hard it was to get him to train and keep his weight down when he was preparing for fights later in his career.

Like its subject, the film does have its flaws, especially when presenting Lionel’s personal life. In present-day footage he’s shown being driven around by his wife and they reminisce about old times. But as the film had already shown their divorce but never anything about reconciliation or remarriage I was left wondering if I’d blinked and missed something. This incongruity unsettled the narrative coherence of the film and left me puzzling over what was going on in some of those sequences. I would also have liked to know a little bit more about Lionel’s life now as a spokesman and ambassador for indigenous people. But then, the film is the story of how Lionel Rose became a national hero, its aftermath and how he remains relatively untouched by the experience. Lionel is a portrait of an average decent guy who’s lived an amazing life.

 

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