ICA Cinematheque – Offside: Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait

Taking the format of a football game; 90 minutes of real time footage and a break at half-time (filled with news stories from around the globe), Zidane: A 21^st Century Portrait is a masterful cinematic document of prominent French footballer Zinedine Zidane with music composed by Mogwai.

The film’s entirety is the 2005 Spanish Liga Real Madrid vs. Villareal CF game, recorded with 17 synchronised cameras, culminating with the infamous violent clash between Zidane and Marco Materazzi after which Zidane was sent off pitch. Video artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Pareno capture the mesmerising fluctuation of Zidane’s psyche throughout the match and allow us to experience an intense sense of voyeurism with a completely relentless and uncondensed view of a much-publicised sporting figure.

Determined in its vision, this portrait of Zidane doesn’t yield to any documentary conventions and takes football into an entirely new field: installation art, in which the camera is not heeded by narrative or logical structure and can record in a way that is unfamiliar and unseen in the world of sports.

Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, dir. Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno, France 2006, 92 mins, music composed by Mogwai