Zidane: A 21stCentury Portrait
ZIDANE: UN PORTRAIT DU 21 SIECLE (Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait) (PG)
reviewed by David Mahmoudieh
Welcome to the World of Zidane. A world of 90 mesmeric minutes in which you will witness the most intimate portrayal of one of history’s greatest. A world that once you enter, you will never want to leave.
Zidane: Un Portrait Du 21 Siecle is a refreshingly hypnotic addition to both the world of football and cinema as experimental art-forms; not the most obvious combinations, being that one relies on taking your chances and the other on as many takes required until you get it right.
ZZ turned the game into an art form long ago, but filmmakers Douglas Gordon and Phillippe Parreno have firmly layed down the gauntlet to other documentary-makers with what I can only describe as a thoroughly impressive excursion into the mind and confidential disposition of the most gifted football player of all time.
Seventeen close-focus cameras, strategically placed throughout Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium and including a hi-def deep-focus US military camera which involved gaining special permission from the Pentagon for usage, set the landscape for observing a genius at work within the amphitheatre through which we think we knew him so well.
Those of you with Sky Sports who may or may not take analytical pleasure in the liberties offered by PlayerCam (a function which allows spectators to follow the movements of a selected player instead of the whole game) are in for a serious upgrade. The dreamily beautiful Mogwai soundtrack weeping softly in the background adds the crucial cinematic dimension which sets this visual narrative apart from an everyday armchair gimmick. Suddenly real-time imagery of Zidane patrolling the middle of the pitch with customary authority and flair, hunting down Villareal midfielders with his subtle predatory instinct, becomes nothing short of epic and is an experience that really needs to be seen to be appreciated.
More fascinatingly, on occasions that old deep, darker reserve we now associate with Zizou's last gesture in his professional career surfaces again, as his nostrils flare or a boot goes in harder than it should have done. And you’ll be genuinely surprised at just how prominent a story eventually emerges – without ruining it for you, an uncanny glimpse of things to come as the end of the game/film provides us with a hint of Zidane’s now, well-documented, wild streak.
(red mist: Zidane heads into the phosphoric, garnet
vapor produced by a solar flair in the crowd; an
absorbing image in view of Zizou's bull-charge at the
capote of Materazzi a year after the match was filmed)
Most of all though, Gordon and Parreno’s gripping footballing biopic may in time offer us a privileged platform of comprehending – and I guess in our own way, interpreting – the inimitable characteristics that make this great athlete stand apart from every other player on the planet. A unique tribute to a unique sportsman.
© David Mahmoudieh 2006
ZIDANE: UN PORTRAIT DU 21 SIECLE (Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait) (PG)
reviewed by David Mahmoudieh
Welcome to the World of Zidane. A world of 90 mesmeric minutes in which you will witness the most intimate portrayal of one of history’s greatest. A world that once you enter, you will never want to leave.
Zidane: Un Portrait Du 21 Siecle is a refreshingly hypnotic addition to both the world of football and cinema as experimental art-forms; not the most obvious combinations, being that one relies on taking your chances and the other on as many takes required until you get it right.
ZZ turned the game into an art form long ago, but filmmakers Douglas Gordon and Phillippe Parreno have firmly layed down the gauntlet to other documentary-makers with what I can only describe as a thoroughly impressive excursion into the mind and confidential disposition of the most gifted football player of all time.
Seventeen close-focus cameras, strategically placed throughout Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium and including a hi-def deep-focus US military camera which involved gaining special permission from the Pentagon for usage, set the landscape for observing a genius at work within the amphitheatre through which we think we knew him so well.
Those of you with Sky Sports who may or may not take analytical pleasure in the liberties offered by PlayerCam (a function which allows spectators to follow the movements of a selected player instead of the whole game) are in for a serious upgrade. The dreamily beautiful Mogwai soundtrack weeping softly in the background adds the crucial cinematic dimension which sets this visual narrative apart from an everyday armchair gimmick. Suddenly real-time imagery of Zidane patrolling the middle of the pitch with customary authority and flair, hunting down Villareal midfielders with his subtle predatory instinct, becomes nothing short of epic and is an experience that really needs to be seen to be appreciated.
More fascinatingly, on occasions that old deep, darker reserve we now associate with Zizou's last gesture in his professional career surfaces again, as his nostrils flare or a boot goes in harder than it should have done. And you’ll be genuinely surprised at just how prominent a story eventually emerges – without ruining it for you, an uncanny glimpse of things to come as the end of the game/film provides us with a hint of Zidane’s now, well-documented, wild streak.
(red mist: Zidane heads into the phosphoric, garnet
vapor produced by a solar flair in the crowd; an
absorbing image in view of Zizou's bull-charge at the
capote of Materazzi a year after the match was filmed)
Most of all though, Gordon and Parreno’s gripping footballing biopic may in time offer us a privileged platform of comprehending – and I guess in our own way, interpreting – the inimitable characteristics that make this great athlete stand apart from every other player on the planet. A unique tribute to a unique sportsman.
© David Mahmoudieh 2006
posted by David Mahmoudieh at 2:32 AM
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