Merci, Zizou
by David Mahmoudieh



Can the World really begrudge a man who gave us a whole new interpretation of the beautiful game?

He was a legend whose name was spoke with gasps and veneration; with idol worship and exaltation; whose very mention lit up eyes and lifted brows of football lovers the world over.

He was a hero to the masses, a man of the people, champion of all who knew or ever played alongside him. And on July 9th 2006, in what was meant to be his valedictory swang-song, Zinedine Zidane captained his nation into the World Cup final in Germany as France’s first man on the pitch... and as history has since so cruelly told us was all too prematurely the first one off it.


(Final Strike: Zidane's last goal of his career, scored
in a World Cup final)

A great deal has since been all but said and done with regards what happened in Berlin on what proved to be a fateful night for the greatest player of his generation and his last ever march into battle.

Three months on, and the World Cup withdrawal syndrome blues befall the cobbled streets of Rome, the scene of a victory parade that saw an Italian community indulging in the grandest celebrations for a triumph achieved via the narrowest of margins. But now that the stardust has settled, even the most begrudging of Italian patriots can’t deny the gaping void felt by the permanent departure of the wizard that was Zinédine Zidane.

As a veteran of three World Cups, and one of only two players to win the World Player of the Year Award three times, Zidane has claimed the scalp of every top honour that the game has to offer. But through football Zidane won so much more than just trophies.


(World's Apart: Zidane's two goals in the 1998
final earned France their first World Cup trophy)

Born on June 23 1972, Zinédine Yazid Zidane grew up on a council estate in the rough, tough, impoverished back-streets of Marseille, France. He spent a modest childhood perfecting his skills amidst ghetto streets engulfed with violence, more so with him being the son Algerian immigrant parents; an abhorently difficult upbringing which fine-tuned his inherent rage to be the best in whatever field he chose to excel in. Yet despite a journey which has taken him to the highest echelons of football’s elite, Zidane was raised and remains to this day a man who never forgot his roots.


(Zidane and team-mate Patrick Vieira embrace
after Zizou's superb goal against Spain)

A natural leader, both on and off the field, his passage from poverty to prominence has since become an inspiration for disadvantaged children not just in France, but the World over. And irrespective of his infamous confrontation with a certain Marco Materazzi, Zidane is far from considered an enemy of the Italian game and people.

The man nicknamed ‘Zizou’ endured a pertinent love-affair with a more recently disgraced Juventus, spear-heading the Old Lady’s charge to three Serie A titles (no bungs required) and two champions league finals during his five years at the club.


(Zidane receiving his first World Player of the Year
Award; he would go on to win two more)

Juventus have a fine tradition with Frenchman; Platini, who wore the famous black and white, then (and now manager) Didier Deschamps, who won the fans over with his combative and gladatorial style, not to mention Trezeguet, Henry, Vieira, Thuram - all of whom have given service to Italy's most famous club.

And it was here, in 1996, that fans first started to admire their newest Frenchman for his decorum as much as his skills with a football; particularly club president Gianni Agnelli, who in addition to being bedazzled by Zidane's technical brilliance was baffled by his unwillingness to take advantage of the many rewards freely tendered to him by the club; women, nightclubs, cars.


(Razu and Zizou: Lizarauz mobs Zidane after scoring a
dramatic late free-kick against England at Euro 2004)

A far cry from his fellow ‘professionals’, Zizou has always remained a model ambassador for the game, inscrutably focused on his career and impeccably devoted to his wife and four Italian-named sons (an acknowledgement by Zidane to the country they were living in at the time of their births).

The point, Zidane united a bond between him and the Italian people long before his confrontation with Materazzi, and one isolated incident can never break that.


(Higher Power: some attribute Zidane's humble nature
and tranquillity to his faith in religion and a higher cause)

Sporting feats aside, there’s an entirely more serious achievement that needs to be recognised here: one which underlines a certain irony when you consider that not fifty years ago it would have been inconceivable that a half-Algerian who describes himself as a ‘non-practising Muslim’ would not only have his face projected atop Paris's Arc de Triomphe bearing the banner "Zizou President", but also be officially labelled the 'most popular Frenchman of all time'.

Perhaps that, above all, is Zidane’s greatest gift to the World; how a man’s unanimous popularity somehow transcends all racial, religious and cultural divides in the ever-heightening tension of a multi-ethnic Europe.


(ZZ Clause: Zidane visits a sick child as part of his work
with various charities, including the UNDP)

As for his footballing eminence, Zidane is already a resident great in the halls of FIFA fame, and his retirement has re-ignited the fires of an almost universal debate that Zidane succeeds the incumbent Pele/Maradona fusion as THE out-and-out greatest player of all time. There’s certainly a strong case for it. Zizou won treble the amount of honours earned by Maradona, played at a much more significant club level than Pelé and was the key part of a French side that became the only team in history to win the World Cup and European Championships back-to-back.


(Rare Sight: Zidane helped France become the only
country in history to hold international football's
two most prestigious trophies at the same time)

What's more, few players have graced the sport with such an original talent - or any other sport for that matter, and to survive at the top of the modern game for more than a decade in this most ruthless age of football where more than double the number of games are played per season compared to Pele or Maradona's era of twenty years ago, is a testament to an irreplaceable footballing myth.

Yet in spite of his other-worldly gift for the game and his humbling personality in private, the debate will no doubt be forever raging as to whether his antics on a football pitch following Materazzi's comments on his prom-night of the game were wholly inexcusable. Though, in his defence, people have been head-butted in the street for saying far less.


(L'Incredible Zizou: need I say more...?)

I’m sure Zidane, in years to come, will look back on his exit from a sport he gave so much to with a patent repent for the manner in which he left it, but maybe he got the better end of the deal. Unless Italy launch a historically unlikely resistance to their crown (only twice has the trophy been retained by its victors), come July 2010 the cup will be heading somewhere else. But Zidane’s legend will last far longer than four years.

His career may have ended, his legacy has just begun...

© David Mahmoudieh 2006

Are You Watching Closely?

(Grandiose director Christopher Nolan and the
equally impressive Bale preparing for a take)

The Prestige (12A)
reviewed by David Mahmoudieh at the
UK premier, Leicester Sq, London

Batman, Wolverine, King Kong, Ziggy Stardust, Alfred the Butler – sounds like a cross-worldly union you could only acquire in a bumper edition of Celebrity Death-Match. But the aforementioned ensemble munificently leave their alter-ego’s behind as an all-star cast go head-to-head in the latest offering from the hugely talented Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins).

Christian Bale (American Pyscho, Batman Begins) and Hugh Jackman (X-Men Trilogy, Van Helsing) convey the tragic grudge of Alfred Borden and Robert Angier, two feuding magicians who lock horns against a misty, murky turn-of-the-century London. Whereas the latter excels in the charm and romanticism of his act, the former is a more elaborate craftsment, devoting his every moment to attaining the perfect illusion. Yet regardless of their conflicting styles, both men can barely suppress the truth of a shared longing for the awe of not only their audience, but ultimately each other.

In many ways the story reveals itself not too dissimilarly to how an illusionist might present their act. And according to Nolan, all magic tricks take on three stages: “The Pledge” – something is presented; closely followed by “The Turn” – the object disappears; and finally “The Prestige” – in which the object reappears miraculously before our eyes.

Demonstrating his subtle cinematic sleight-of-hand and staying true to his earlier works, The Prestige unfolds through Nolan’s archetypal blue-print of running three parallel timelines, each inter-cutting between cause, effect and the symmedian bridge of the present that links all three together. Though a tad confusing to those unfamiliar with Nolan's previous designs, the intervallic re-arrangement of time's chain offers interesting equivalences to the magicians' pursuit of the ultimate illusionary pay-off.



Right from the beginning we’re given no time to breathe, thrown in at the deep end (both physically and metaphorically), with Jackman’s Angier drowning in a water tank following a trick gone horribly wrong.

As events non-chronologically progress, we learn these two warring servants of magic were once friends and aspiring apprentices, both beguiled under the tutelage of grand old showman Cutter (masterly played by Michael Caine) who through one time-line is observed mentoring the pair in his prevailing but unorthodox ways of illusionism.

However, when Angier’s wife and Cutter’s assistant, Julia (Piper Perabo), is killed in a freak on-stage accident, Angier forever blames Borden for his costly blunder in the tragedy. The one-time friendly antagonism soon blooms into bitter, vengeful hatred and the pair begin a callous game of chess-like trickery and deception against one another.

At first the battle seems well-balanced. That is until Borden designs and performs the “Transporting Man” trick, an illusion which appears to cross the lines of impossibility. Angier, smothered in spite, desperately attempts to figure out the mechanics of Borden’s show-stopper – but to no reward.



Always demanding his audience pay close attention, Nolan then introduces the third linear line we are to travel, as Angier journeys afar to consult the expertise of an almost unrecognizable David Bowie (those alter-ego’s staring to make sense now…?) in the form of Nikola Tesla, a zany designer of the machine intrinsic to Borden’s trick, Tesla's trusty assistant Alley (Andy Serkis) in tow.

It is here within the parenthesis passage of the film that we comprehend the deepest reach of each man’s envy; particularly Angier’s, whose rile at his own failure to beat his fellow magician seemingly surpasses his sorrow for the death of his wife.

Scarlet Johansson subsequently throws in her two-shilling’s worth, playing Angier’s vivacious assistant, Olive, a comparatively negligible role – though her character’s scampering between the two rivals functions mainly as a story stratagem, enhancing conflict between the pair – but more fundamentally providing an emotional insight into the adulterous Borden’s World.

Rebecca Hall also deserves a mention as Borden’s unsuspecting wife, Sarah, and does convincingly well with a small but again very figurative part.

(Under no illusion: Scarlet Johansson)

Nestled amongst all this cleverness, there does at times seem to be an abhorent absence of an emotional hook to swing us one way or another. There are times when the characters present themselves so abominably in their fixations that you wouldn’t really care if neither of them succeeded. But even when the insolence of the protagonists make neither of them root-able, Nolan’s habitual DP, the inimitable Wally Pfister (ASC), provides some truly stunning, eye-grabbing cinematography.


(Nolan on set directing Jackman in one of the
film's most visually memorable scenes)

All in all, Nolan and co-writer/brother Jonathon (Memento) have done a commendable job adapting Christopher Priest's spellbinding novel, and despite some major plot changes have crafted another multi-layered narrative. Who knows, maybe they even drew on that hidden rivalry which might plague two brothers so innately wrapped up in each other’s projects and maneuverings, willfully injecting some of their own experience into the alchemy of a man’s competitive agendas for self-evaluation and perfection.

On the directorial duties, Nolan conjures all his narrative talent to keep a temporal forward momentum and for a film that doesn’t always unravel chronologically, does have an admirable flow and ironically reckless fluidity.

The gravity of style and industriousness more than make-over for the films few and small imperfections, such as the ending which – if you’ve followed all of Nolan’s clues – not only feels surprisingly predictable, but requires one huge leap of faith.

But isn’t that just magic in its most prestigious form? As Caine’s poker-faced Cutter puts it so persuasively, “It's not a trick… it's real.”

© David Mahmoudieh 2006