Post by Capo on Jan 18, 2007 17:46:27 GMT
Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle
Zidane: a 21st Century Portrait
Douglas Gordon / Philippe Parreno 2005 France / Iceland
April 23, 2005: Real Madrid take on Villareal at home in the Spanish football league; the cameras follow playmaker Zinedine Zidane for the entire match.
That's the selling point, but it is slightly misleading: there is, now and then, a detracting, rather unnecessary cut-away to the empty corridors of the stadium while the match goes on, and it is often caught at the awkward mid-way point between concentrating on Zidane alone, and placing him in the context of the match itself - the original televised coverage is mixed in too, and POV shots are even attempted at one point, with cut-aways to the scoreboard edited into Zidane looking at it. So it's imbalanced to begin with, and the half-time interval, a newsreel of events which happened around the world on that day, tries to give it a sort of existential weight it probably already had anyway. But this is fascinating. It might help to follow football as a sport, but Zidane is treated very much like a Herzogian genius, enigmatic and brooding, so that the film is very much a character study of loneliness, of being under pressure as an athlete, of being in and out of a game as part of a team. Its best moments are those in which the filmmakers refrain from cutting and let the camera watch in long-shot as Zidane stands and watches the game, in his own world, his white jersey contrasting against the green pitch, and thousands of fans watching on behind him; Mogwai's soundtrack compliments these moments greatly. It's one of those experiences that you only remember in fragmented images and tones, with a very weird, lingering feel of wanting to see it again.
Zidane: a 21st Century Portrait
Douglas Gordon / Philippe Parreno 2005 France / Iceland
April 23, 2005: Real Madrid take on Villareal at home in the Spanish football league; the cameras follow playmaker Zinedine Zidane for the entire match.
That's the selling point, but it is slightly misleading: there is, now and then, a detracting, rather unnecessary cut-away to the empty corridors of the stadium while the match goes on, and it is often caught at the awkward mid-way point between concentrating on Zidane alone, and placing him in the context of the match itself - the original televised coverage is mixed in too, and POV shots are even attempted at one point, with cut-aways to the scoreboard edited into Zidane looking at it. So it's imbalanced to begin with, and the half-time interval, a newsreel of events which happened around the world on that day, tries to give it a sort of existential weight it probably already had anyway. But this is fascinating. It might help to follow football as a sport, but Zidane is treated very much like a Herzogian genius, enigmatic and brooding, so that the film is very much a character study of loneliness, of being under pressure as an athlete, of being in and out of a game as part of a team. Its best moments are those in which the filmmakers refrain from cutting and let the camera watch in long-shot as Zidane stands and watches the game, in his own world, his white jersey contrasting against the green pitch, and thousands of fans watching on behind him; Mogwai's soundtrack compliments these moments greatly. It's one of those experiences that you only remember in fragmented images and tones, with a very weird, lingering feel of wanting to see it again.