More People Need to Watch This Moving Documentary on Netflix

Netflix is bulging with world-class sports activities documentaries. 

On the prime of the pile is Untold, a sequence of immaculate options about the strangest, most unimaginable tales in sport over the previous few a long time. However there’s extra the place that got here from. The Final Dance is on Netflix. The Oscar-winning Icarus is on Netflix. There’s Athlete A, The River Runner, Unhealthy Sport — the checklist is countless. 

However there’s one documentary I hardly ever hear folks wax lyrical about. And they need to, as a result of it is unimaginable.

Coming in at an accessible 40 minutes, The Pace Cubers is a brief, barely feature-length documentary about velocity cubing, the act of fixing several types of Rubik’s Cubes as shortly as doable. 

Pace cubing is thoughts boggling. Most individuals would battle to determine a 3x3x3 Rubik’s Dice in hours if challenged, however the very best can remedy them in seconds. The Pace Cubers explores this subculture, specializing in the tales of two of the world’s quickest, the legendary Feliks Zemdegs and the brand new king of velocity cubing, Max Park. 

In some methods, Zemdegs is the Roger Federer of Rubik’s Cubes. Regardless of the actual fact each velocity cubing file he as soon as held has now been damaged, he is extensively thought-about the best of all time, having established as much as 121 world data and profitable the velocity cubing world championship twice, in 2013 and 2015. 

Zemdegs is the hero of Parks, who now, in 2022, has damaged nearly each file Zemdegs as soon as held. Now 20 years outdated, Park was identified with reasonable to extreme autism on the age of two. After his mom gave him a Rubik’s Dice to assist develop his motor expertise, Parks shortly turned obsessive about fixing all totally different sorts of cubes. By way of his participation in velocity cubing competitions, Max not solely discovered his ardour, he discovered a strategy to socially develop and make nice buddies within the course of. 

What may have simply been a bog-standard story a few once-legendary determine passing the torch in the end evolves into one thing much more profound. Not solely are Felix and Max buddies, however Felix is one thing of a job mannequin for Park — not simply within the creating artwork of velocity cubing, however in how you can deal with himself socially. 

Zemdegs’ delicate interactions with Park and his household are on the core of this documentary, and so they’re lovely to look at. Particularly as Zemdegs wrestles with the challenges of now not being on the apex of the passion he devoted his life to perfecting.

It is heartwarming stuff. Regardless of its quick runtime, The Pace Cubers serves as a unbelievable portrait of two very totally different people each relentlessly dedicated to the identical pursuit. Past that, it is also a narrative concerning the true worth of sport, and the connection between these competing towards each other. Solely one among these two unimaginable human beings could be the very best velocity cuber on the planet, however within the grand scheme of issues, does it matter who? The Pace Cubers is a narrative about one of the fascinating subcultures on planet Earth, but it surely’s additionally a narrative about what it means to be an excellent individual. And an excellent good friend.