World Cup Picks: Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait

In 2005, two film makers approached aging French superstar Zinedine Zidane about featuring him in an abstract art film and he accepted.  The result is Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait which might best be described as a cross between a video art installation and a long-form music video.  Rather than create a narrative about Zidane the man or Zidane the player, the directors placed 17 cameras throughout the stadium and filmed one single match between Real Madrid and Villareal on April 23, 2005.

This approach had been tried before in a 1970 film that did nothing more than follow Manchester United winger George Best for 90 minutes, so it seems clear that the film makers weren't interested in breaking new ground.  Still, their film turned out to be an interesting and somewhat melancholy meditation on Zidane, soccer, and a superstar athlete nearing the end of his career.  The film is not at all about the game as the cameras track Zidane exclusively, regardless of where the action takes place on the field.  What it reveals is a man who drags his toe in the grass a lot, who is prone to sudden bursts of activity and aggression, and who spends most of an entire match waiting for the ball and then passing it to someone else almost as soon as he gets it.  At times, Zidane almost seems completely removed from the action of the game, but then as play weaves his way, he snaps into action and shines.

Perhaps that feeling of melancholy isn't really part of the film, but something that is hard to ignore given Zidane's ignominious finale in professional football (he was ejected in the World Cup Final for headbutting an Italian player just as his team was on the verge of taking home the trophy.)  Perhaps it derives from the score by Mogwai that is beautiful, restrained, and always just a little sad.  Perhaps it's a function of the way that this game versus Villareal actually ends up--a strange 'twist' ending to a film that is otherwise devoid of any real narrative depth.  I like to think that Zidane works because all of those things are true, and also because at halftime, the film makers head out of the stadium for a poignant reminder of just what the game and Zidane mean to so many people around the world.  If you can find this, give it a chance.