Free to Run tells the amazing story of the running movement over the past five decades and the innovators who brought the world of running to where it is today. The film examines the idealistic beginnings of jogging in the early 1960¡¯s, the struggle for the right to run—especially for women—against conservative Track and Field Federations, the explosion of grass roots road races and marathons in the 70s and 80s, the boom of running as a vast business enterprise.
Review
is a story about people who run forward as they demolish the wall of taboo built with prejudices of the past. The film starts from the 1960s when women were not allowed for ¡®freedom to run¡¯ and, on the track called time, it heads for today in which ¡®running¡¯ became a huge sports industry itself. The companies who run this hectic marathon together, made by Pierre Morath, the director, are real runners who actually ran along the history of running. The film melts those characters¡¯ memories and testimony in order to step on the track those runners took while properly presents the irony and problems of the days. The former time brutal to women are wholly restored in images and prints. The film doesn¡¯t stick to documentary customs like simple listing or flashbacks, rather discards them. With Sensuous image beauty and music that don¡¯t allow the audience to get bored, the film leads us to the current time and space. This speedy development definitely attracts the audience. It skillfully controls the flow so the audience can concentrate on the narrative not losing its context. The film itself is a sort of pace maker, then. That 100-minute long marathon¡¯s finish line is the present where we are allowed to meet ¡®ourselves.¡¯ Pierre Morath, in , questions if we run the full marathon, to the liberty, or stop in the middle. [Choi Hui-suk]