Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait

The "Soccer Fever" film series at the The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) ends Tuesday with "Goal! World Cup 1966".

This afternoon I saw "Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait", the 2006 film by Gordon and Parreno. This is not a documentary about now retired French football star Zinedine Zidane with interviews, file footage and timelines. But it is nonetheless a film about him. The filmmakers set up 17 cameras around the pitch and stadium and recorded 90 minutes of Zidane playing for his club Real Madrid in a match against Villareal. This may seem mundane. But the extraordinary thing about this film is that those 17 cameras are not following the ball and the action as one normally views a televised match, but Zidane exclusively. This is strange even disquieting, but also fascinating. There are goals, fouls and every other detail of a match that go almost unseen because the camera is following Zidane. What one does see are those quiet, meditative moments that Zidane has off the ball, his movement into space, his nervous toe-dragging habit, a smile. Of course one also sees his brilliant touch on the ball, his rhythm.

The stunning camerawork has the strange effect of shrinking the pitch and creating an intimacy one would not normally get watching a match on TV. At times we are so close to the action it feels as if we are watching a Sunday pick-up game in the park.

But there was something bizarre about watching a 90 minute football match, as I would on any Saturday, and at the same time watching a 90 minute film about a match. Reel time vs. real time.

Anyway... a great film. See it. I don't imagine my posts from South Africa will be so cerebral.

I almost forgot, Scottish band Mogwai do the soundtrack. Come on!