Close up and personal with Zinedine Zidane ... the movie

The film of Zinedine Zidane brings out the person rather than the legend of France's greatest footballer. Picture / Reuters

PARIS - France's Government is in a near state of civil war, its economy mired in unemployment and its society still reeling from the race-tinged unrest in its housing estates six months ago.

So the timing is perfect for a film about its iconic footballer, Zinedine Zidane, a touchstone for all things French that are great and good.

"Zizou" is arguably the most famous figure in the world's most popular sport. He's also the most expensive - signed by Real Madrid from Juventus for a reported US$66 million.

He has picked up just about every award in football, from Footballer of the Year to European Cups and the World Cup, which he won for France with two goals in 1998 against Brazil.

And - to many French people - he is also a symbol of what their troubled country should be.

The hard-working, quietly spoken, devoted father-of-four is modest to a fault and, as a son of Algerian immigrants, a model of what can be achieved when merit sidelines racism.

Zidane, a 21st-Century Portrait will be screened at 300 cinemas after premiering on Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival.

It cleverly coincides with next months World Cup in Germany, when Zizou turns 34 and makes his farewell from the game, yet it uses a highly unusual approach in its portrayal.

Its two directors are Scottish film-maker Douglas Gordon, otherwise known for 24-Hour Psycho - in which he slowed down Hitchcock's thriller so that it lasts a whole day - and French-Algerian, Philippe Parreno.

"We were looking to produce a portrait of a man of the 21st century, and it turned out Zidane was this man," said Gordon. "He can represent something important for many fans and at the same time represents something that goes beyond that." But, he added, 'nobody should expect a documentary, it's a psychological portrait, the reflection of a state of mind."

Indeed. Gordon and Parreno used 150 crew and 17 cameras, two of them mega-lenses devised by the US military, to record Zidane at a match between Real Madrid and Villarreal.

Football lovers who attended a preview in Paris left the cinema looking as sick as parrots, while critics were wondering if documentaries had entered a bold new age.

Zidane is filmed very close up for, appropriately, 90 minutes: his taciturn, hawk-like face is seen in relentless concentration, perspiring, spitting, twisting this way and that as he runs and tracks the game.

His hands frequently rub, almost compulsively-like, over his head and face and he repeatedly folds and unfolds his socks. Yet the context in which he does these things is absent.

Almost nothing is seen except his feet and face. The other "Galacticos" of Real - such as Beckham and Ronaldo - are all but absent. The sound is that of the crowd, pumped to a huge volume and punctuated by bursts of music and television commentary.

The image is supplemented by subtitled quotes from Zidane, taken from conversations with Parreno.

"The game, the event, is not necessarily experienced or even remembered in real time. My memories of games and events are fragmented."

Football lovers were disappointed at the fleeting tribute to his skill.

But film lovers were impressed, seeing an ambitious attempt to portray a sporting hero without varnish and PR. Indeed, at the end of the match, the usually imperturbable Zidane gets involved in a row and is sent off.

What lies next for Zizou? Perhaps it hardly matters. He is now one of France's secular saints.

Memories of 1998 help warm hearts in the bleak times of today. "Zidane made us dream," says Marcel Desailly, a fellow World Cup great.