Zidane

Kriston Capps praises Blake Gopnik's review of Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait. One problem -- Kriston hasn't actually seen the film. Well, when he was trying his best to see it a week and a half ago, I was actually there in the Hirschorn screening room, and let me tell you that the main difficulty with the film is that it's deadly, deadly boring. One of the most soporific things I've ever seen. Just a really, truly incredibly boring movie. I didn't even dislike it as much as my girlfriend who kept apologizing afterwards for having suggested it (perhaps we were one of Gopnik's "sporty young couples out on dates").

At any rate, Gopnik seems to have missed this part of the enterprise, so let me just repeat once more because I cannot emphasize this enough -- it's a really, really, really boring film. If you're saying to yourself, "man, I'd like to see a dull movie about soccer," though, you should definitely try to check it out.

Comments

So what exactly was the movie about? Did it cover more than the World Cup? Would it have been better as a documentary?

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | May 1, 2007 3:10 AM

i think the film as soporific is the desired effect. douglas gordon's most well-known piece is a version of hitchcock's psycho slowed down to play for 24 hours from beginning to end. in other words, zidanecam for 90 minutes ain't nothin.

Posted by ne | May 1, 2007 3:37 AM

Here's a 4:02 Zidane YouTube clip for comparison. The other half of Sporty Young Couple may enjoy it if she recommended seeing the Zidane movie. I've probably seen this clip more than 20x which would be more time than the Zidane movie in aggregate and I still enjoy it. Merci Zizu!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LhcM4WP2cTc

Posted by joejoejoe | May 1, 2007 4:00 AM

It looks like the sort of project a Warholl or a Marcell Proust would do.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | May 1, 2007 4:22 AM

Your pretentious ass got what you deserved for seeing it. I worship zidane and yet I didnt even bother with this. Such was the self evidence of its contrived "artistic" ambitions.

Posted by pimp hand strikes! | May 1, 2007 5:03 AM

A boring movie in a modern art museum - dog bites man.

Posted by ostap | May 1, 2007 8:25 AM

The best Zidane rant I have heard is Mark Kermode on
BBC radio Five Live.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/entertainment/kermode_archive_z.shtml
(start at 23:10)

Posted by Chris J. | May 1, 2007 9:02 AM

The problem with soccer is that there's a whole lot of time involved with just a wee bit of something else interspersed among the other stuff. It's just life in short pants.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 1, 2007 9:05 AM

I didn't even dislike it as much as my girlfriend who kept apologizing afterwards for having suggested it

Did your girlfriend who didn't apologize afterwards for having suggested it like it?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | May 1, 2007 9:19 AM

In my defense, I was praising Gopnik for the review he wrote, for telling me what I wanted to know about the film: whether it was a boring Gordon movie or a damn soccer movie. I like Gordon's boring films. But MY says that Gopnik neglected to emphasize that Zidane is bleating about soccer over the soundtrack the whole time. That's an intolerable film.

Posted by Kriston | May 1, 2007 9:47 AM

Zidane the movie simply imitates (though with far better tech) Hellmuth Costard who did the same thing in Football As Never Before (1971) with George Best in a game between Man Utd v Coventry. Better soundtrack though; any film with Mogwai can't be all bad and I think Zidane was sublime.

And if you don't appreciate football/soccer or the mastery of Zidane as a classic number 10 (nothing to do with his shirt number), then try to avoid advertising your ignorance and stick to the NFL.

Posted by Gerrard in the Middle | May 1, 2007 12:02 PM

The problem with soccer is that there's a whole lot of time involved with just a wee bit of something else interspersed among the other stuff.

As opposed to the American-bred alternatives, where the 'something else' is people selling you things on the teevee, or random dancers if you're at the stadium? I particularly love the way in which NBA basketball is -- admit it -- a game of four 12-minute quarters in which only the final one matters, and that lasts for an hour in real time thanks to stoppages and timeouts.

Soccer movies you will like: The Other Final, The Game Of Their Lives (non-fiction); Escape To Victory (camp fiction in both senses of the word 'camp').

But a conceptual art piece that simply apes one of the interactive options on Sky Digital? (Or, for Americans, the player-cam of Madden.) Nah.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 1, 2007 12:06 PM

The problem with soccer is that there's a whole lot of time involved with just a wee bit of something else interspersed among the other stuff. It's just life in short pants.

The problem with your post is that it's incoherent.

Because it vaguely resembles a lame critique of soccer, however, I also deem it idiotic.

Posted by Tom | May 1, 2007 1:00 PM

First, metric football sucks, let's get that out of the way. I don't have time to explain why at the moment, just take my word for it. Second, I hear this type of thing a lot: "I particularly love the way in which NBA basketball is -- admit it -- a game of four 12-minute quarters in which only the final one matters" ... Right. So if you're behind 70-50 going into the 4th quarter, and you outscore the other team 30-15 in the 4th, you win, right?

Posted by too many steves | May 1, 2007 7:58 PM