ZIDANE - A 21ST CENTURY PORTRAIT (OST)

"The initial idea was to make a film which would follow just one character as he journeys through a story", explains Philippe Parreno. "And then the idea came to film just a single player during an entire match. A match lasts the same time as a film. We're both soccer fans. The first and only player we immediately thought of was Zidane."

"Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle" is a 90' film all shot at once, on April 23, 2005 at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. It's the soccer game of Real Madrid against Villareal. 17 cameras (super-35mm scope) were placed all over the stadium and were all centred exclusively on Zidane. Two of the cameras used for this film were only used for America's army before and offer a high quality zoom. From the first kick of the ball to the final whistle all that you get to see is "Zizou" in the field and just a few subtitles taken from an interview. Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno are the film directors.

Douglas Gordon: "It was a long journey to arrive at the final sound as Philippe wanted something highly sonorised, while I fought to make rather a silent film. But as you've seen, the film is full of sound... But to be frank, there are things about which Mogwai spoke that we didn't really understand. They spoke of "sampling" audience attendance. We decided to trust them entirely."

Philippe Parreno: "We asked them for music which was able to show at what point Zidane is concentrated. They constructed rich, complex music, which met all our needs."

If you are not knew to Mogwai's music you can expect what to hear but when you'll really get to hear the album, you will be more than satisfied. This is another excellent album by Mogwai. While generally soundtracks are not considered as "real" studio albums this is not the case. Many band's soundtracks differ a lot from their other works but Mogwai's music was always like that and as a result, this album can be considered as another studio album by Mogwai. The music for this film was really important. It's not a typical film full of dialogues and sounds. It's 90' showing a football player and that could have terrible results with a bad soundtrack. Thankfully Mogwai did their best and created a masterpiece. The music alone is so powerful and deep yet light and smooth. While it's softer than other Mogwai works, not having the moments where huge walls of sound burst out of the speakers, it has a very nice and warm sound (thanks to both band itself and the production). The compositions are exceptional. The drums are really put back while the piano is the leading instrument. Of course the feedback-drone guitars are still there.

When I first thought about writing this review I was thinking of concentrating only on the music but I seem unable to express my feelings about it. I can't be subjective cause Zinedine Zidane is a piece of art by himself. I don't want to use words such as best so I'll just say he is my favourite soccer player for both his actions inside and outside the field. What can somebody say about his imagination, creativity, spirit, the way he touched the ball, the way he moved, behaved. I'll give this 5 stars. I don't want to analyse it more cause the whole package made me feel somehow and I can't make you feel that way with my review. You should see/listen to it by yourself. That's what art really is or at least should be about. Expression!