“A bald guy walking around”

October 17 – 2006

Being based in LA, we’re familiar with the way movies get made: real life people do something inspiring, a screenwriter captures the event in a script, producers add aliens and a topless scene, the film is shot, and the actors take credit for the original real-life event. Awesome.

Occasionally, however, there may be a more organic development:

“The initial idea was to make a film which would follow just one character as he journeys through a story”, explains Philippe Parreno. “And then the idea came to film just a single player during an entire match. A match lasts the same time as a film. We’re soccer fans. The first and only player we immediately thought of was Zidane.”

And just like that, artists Philippe Pareno and Douglas Gordon have made a film titled Zidane, A Portrait of the 21st Century. Using an array of 27 cameras, Pareno filmed an entire La Liga match focusing only on Zidane. The result is less like a sports documentary, and more like an art film. Shown both at Cannes and the Toronto film festival, the reception seems to have broken predictably along two lines: soccer fans find it awe inspiring, while non-fans find it more boring than the English Patient.

We can think of no player more deserving of a 27 camera closeup, and our suspicion is that Zidane’s change of pace, masterful vision, and unparalalelled control will only be more impressive under the microscope. And his temper? Spoiler alert: towards the end of the match, Zizou is sent off. Now that’s a feel good ending.

Find a good review here, and a bad review here.

Edit: Though we’ve nothing against the Braveheart soundtrack, the actual movie is cored by the very excellent Scottish band, Mogwai.