White shirt, red mist

Early in Zidane, a 21st century portrait there were two images that spoke volumes about football and Zizou's place in it. The first two names visible after the opening montage, largely abstract of closeups of CRT TV, blurry players in white decomposing into tricolour blobs, were on the back of two Real Madrid players: Zidane and Pavon. This, I think shows the extent to which editing and shot selection are inherently problematic in a film like this (though I think only if you come to it with an assumption that you will see the match "as it really was" rather than just another version). The next was after five minutes sweating already and spitting and hawking out snots as he did the whole way through he is bobbing around, pointing at the ground and shouting for the ball to no avail. Reminds me of childhood.

For me it works best as a semi-abstract film. Rather than an attempt to impose another coherent narrative on the match from the commentators and TV's version (which I would suddenly like to see) we see the match in claustrophobic confusion. Thumps and bumps and runs. I think they were quite lucky that Villareal, judging by the number of dribbles Zidane did and the number midshots in which Zidane was alone, didn't man-mark him at all. Perhaps the twilight of his career was the time to do it and his years of delaying were part of a plan... It was interesting to see how much of his game involves trapping with his chest and stomach and cushioned headers. There were sequences when he didn't touch the ball with his feet. But when he did, ball at feet, turning defenders inside out before lobbing a cross over the keeper into the path of one of his teammates requiring only any kind of touch to be a goal...

He didn't say must. Just loads of 'hey's the odd 'aqui', a subtitle told us that he said to the referee 'you should be ashamed' after a dodgy penalty award. Shortly before the end Roberto Carlos (the player he had most interaction with) said something funny and Zidane laughed and kept the smile on his face a long time, the way you do in a time when you have had no human communication. But did he smile any other time? Was it lost in the edit? This is no dogma style document that promotes its purity. I guess that they did edit the film as near as they could to real time using the synchronised timecode but even at that the choices mean that this one smile could simply be the one they left in. Around about then I noticed the soundtrack began to foreground the thumps of people hitting each other. Zidane had been clattered to the ground early on, earning a Villareal player the first booking. There had been a couple more but in general the physical power of Zidane's game was a constant presence and he muscled his way on to several balls. Forlan got sent off (he also missed a sitter disproving the notion that he bangs them in for fun in Spain) and the camera made a big deal of him pushing Senna. And then (was it Raúl?) was bustled off the ball at the byline and Zidane barged in swung a punch and grabbed some guy. Game over and the film makers must have been glad he got sent off in the final.

Funny thing is, he was only a cameo but, the player showing mastery and artistry and consummate genius in this game was not Zidane: it was Casillas.

This film is not yet rated

Hey, it's turning into movie review city. We saw this at the documentary festival on in Dublin last weekend and it was a hoot. The US has a very different system for censorship compared to most of Europe: it's privatised. It's not called censorship, it's called a ratings system to help parents protect their children. We have a more paternalistic state run system. It's called censorship and they simply won't release films with extreme sex or violence except through porn and mail order outlets. If a film gets an NC-17 rating the theatre owners are theoretically free to show the film. They won't however. The US non-censorious "censorship" is remarkably effective at stopping films being seen. I've been thinking a fair bit recently about what is done well in the US privately and bad by the government and what is done badly by Europe privately and well by the government (no one sector fits this exactly but you can say European public health is good, US private education is good...). Funnily enough most US citizens would scream blue murder if their government had half the censorship power that they gladly cede to an unelected cabal at the service of big business. In Europe the opposite is the case. And I do think that in this instance we are right. If the government applies ratings it has to do it in an open, transparent, and legally challengeable way. You have to be able to take them to court. The appeals process in the US system is that you appear before an anonymous board comprised of members of the organisation that convened the first panel and you are not allowed argue any precedent. This is huge. Forget denying constitutional rights. This is bigger: the common law is explicitly denied you. There is no presumption that you should be treated fairly.

Dick exposes the inevitable result of this: homophobia, anti-women, pro-violence films in the theatres. Kevin Smith argues that the censor should come down hard on misogynistic violence: it is disproportionately the lazy plot device of the intellectually neutered hollywood violence movie. Can't argue with him on that one. Do we really need to see women raped or in fear of rape constantly? What's better and less worthy of protecting children from seeing that or normal, bog standard sex between two people? The British censorship board draws a distinction between pornography and cinema with actual sex acts filmed in it. It reminds me of Negativland's distinction in copyright law between theft and artistic appropriation of a sample: they argued that ordinary people could tell the difference. You can. So why not do that, in public, and with right of appeal?

The censorship system in America won't be destroyed by this film: it's an embarrassing anachronism already. This film will only be seen by many people because this is already the case. The question is what will fill the void of its collapse? A free for all of violent women hating pro gun homophobic porn? A snide self serving censorship by new media which will serve to deny access to customers for smaller media organisations but do nothing to stem the tide of misogynistic gung ho violence that pollutes our channels? The US government needs to take control of this issue but is too weak to do so. I figure another century of hypocrisy is on the way.

As a postscript I feel I must link out to the in evitable far right wing blog which describes the film as "shameful". The Kirby Dick film talks about a film which was initially given an NC-17 and later downgraded to 13. This film is Gunner Palace, this fact is discussed in the film. It is entirely in context of the US censorship system that a film full of violence and what is hilariously called "dropping the f-bomb" should be passed rather than a film with normal activity like sex. Most of us don't go invading foreign countries and killing civilians.We do engage in enthusiastic sex.
The "f-bomb", have you ever heard anything so peurile? And their mammies* weren't even with them as far as I can tell.
I'd sooner we dropped the motherfucking f-bomb all over the fucking place than cluster bombs all over Southern Lebanon.

*mommies