The camera never leaves soccer sensation Zinedine Zidane in Douglas Gordon and Philippe Pareno’s A 21st Century Portrait
More portrait than documentary Zidane still provides futbol fans with a unique view
More than a year before the infamous head-butt that ended both the French squad’s World Cup run and his professional career in 2006 soccer superstar Zinedine Zidane found himself at the centre of attention on another unusual occasion. At a match between Villareal and Real Madrid (Zidane’s then-home club) in April of 2005 two footie-mad artists named Douglas Gordon and Philippe Pareno employed a team of cameramen led by the great Darius Khondji (director of photography for Delicatessen and Se7en ) to continually shoot Zidane from a variety of vantage points using 17 cameras. It wasn’t exactly an original idea — German filmmaker Hellmuth Costard did a similar project in 1970 with George Best as his subject — but what they created was a real-time portrait of a great sportsman in action. It is given additional immediacy by a cunning soundtrack that mixes the game’s natural sounds Zidane’s own narration and an alternately eerie and thunderous score by Mogwai.
Both artists behind Zidane: A 21st Century Portait have often explored the nature of temporality in their works — Gordon is best known for 24 Hour Psycho the Turner Prize-winning piece that extended Hitchcock’s thriller to a rather more demanding running time. Zidane again upends our experience of a familiar event in this case a soccer match. Whereas the typical objective of a sports event that’s been packaged for television audiences is to follow the action (i.e. the ball) here Zidane is the only subject that interests the cameras. To see him variously sprint charge dawdle tackle grunt and kick his way through a game is to develop a fuller understanding of what any professional player does on the pitch. (Zidane’s insights on the matter are also very helpful.)
Though the stuff between goals can be as dull as cricket the viewer’s experience of the game is unusually visceral even during the boring bits. Eggheads and hooligans will be equally awestruck at how well the movie simulates a player’s perspective of a match in progress especially as the game heads into the final stages and signs of Zidane’s infamous temper begin to show. (Indeed the climactic moments prove to be bracingly prescient in regards to his World Cup rage.) A unique and very crafty exercise in real-time art and sports-hero worship this may be the next best thing to stepping into Zidane’s sweaty cleats. And it’s gotta hurt less than getting on his bad side.
