Zidane

During the summer of 2006, the VP days when I was living out in FC, even though we were in the midst of the continued flailings and unending urgency of a start-up treading water, I had built a sufficient reservoir of respect that I could disappear during the mid-mornings to watch World Cup games. And even though I was often working weekends, on July 9th I was down in San Jose, kicking it with cousins, watching France-Italy. I have a distinct memory of the moment when the television replay caught up to the action of the game, after Zidane had been shown his red card, when the jaws of all of my cousins and uncles watching the final simply dropped, and hung open. The room went silent for a good ten seconds. Everybody was stunned.

To this day, I cannot imagine a potential scenario in sport more strange and senseless than Zidane, ten minutes from potentially crowning himself world champion for the second time, and placing himself in a pantheon of five, maybe even three, among the greatest of all time, turning from a seemingly placid jog up field, sizing up Materazzi, and then planting his forehead directly in the Italian's chest. The act was at the same moment so awkward and so violent that it challenged comprehension. In watching the replay, it is as if you can see the exact moment when something in Zidane snaps, and he goes from classy footballer to borderline homicidal maniac.

When PG forwarded the excellent idea to check out a screening of Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait at the unfortunately named, but otherwise excellent (part of the we're no longer poor and talented, but rather, rich with exquisite taste movement afoot in Brooklyn) multimedia space and restaurant Monkeytown, over in the WB, I jumped all over it. And the film does not disappoint. Arty without being difficult, Zidane is contemplative and entrancing. Multiple camera angles, all focused on Zidane, are woven together in a complex visual narrative of the match - but one that also feels like football. At a moment graceful, in focus, with sudden bursts of speed and action, stretches that are simply rhythm and flow, alternating perspectives of a part chess match, part ballet of twenty two men, and then closely hewn to the singular actions of physical genius of the individual footballer. And, funny game that it is, the moment you step into the bathroom, a goal is scored. The movie is beautiful, and both the film and sound editing absorbing without being manipulative. It is wonderful to see a film about football in which Beckham is only an extra, crossing the screen out of focus. The pulsating match between Villareal and Madrid servers as a wonderful backdrop, and amazingly, Zidane appears in all his forms: as magician, as mirthful footballer, as workman, and as psychokiller. For someone who is playing in a soccer match, a wonderful performance.

And should his legacy not be one of violent outbursts, a reminder: a genius.