God loves football

The film "edification" begins with the fact that this word is translated into 70 languages. Alas, the name of the protagonist, hidden in Russian edification, is lost during the translation. The authors of the film are the artistic director of the Moscow "Electric Theater of Stanislavsky" Boris Yukhananov and the director and producer Alexander Shein - trace the fate of the French football player Zinedine Zidan, the brilliant start of his career, departure from the national team, a sudden return and participation in the 2006 World Championship, in the final of which the famous clash between Zidan and the Italian football player Marco Materezzi.

"The edification" is the only full-length Russian film shown at the 70th film festival in Locarno -not a banal documentary movie about football, but a story about miracles, signs, non-accident coincidences and God's will. The directors explain to the audience that the story of Zidane is a mystery, staged by the Almighty himself, a grandiose divine performance, the culmination of which was the final match of the championship, during which Zidan hit Matterace's head. Wars, airlines, hurricanes - everything is woven into this plot and finds an explanation in it.

On August 12, 2004, Zidan, who is loved by the whole country, leaves the French national team, but then decides to return, and in an unusually frank interview France Football says that he heard a certain voice at 3 o’clock in the night, convinced him to make such a choice. The cynics raise a football player to laugh, but the authors of the Nazing are sure that the Higher Forces actually led Zidan. Everything went to generating a grandiose canvas comparable to Michelangelo's masterpieces - a clash of Zidan and Materezzi, which for a split second turned into one mysterious creature. Why did the Creator need this mystery of reincarnation, played in front of millions?

Explains the creator of "Nazing" Boris Yukhananov.

“Does Zidan know that you dedicated him to a movie poem?”

- Zidan still does not know. Naturally, I have to show him this film, and it will be very exciting for everyone.

- If there was an opportunity to ask him one question, what would you ask?

“ I would ask if he liked my film.”

- And about his life?

“ I know almost everything about him.” It was such a research work in which, in my opinion, there were no white spots. In any case, in the light of our concept. Of course, I would ask him for permission to put the camera and, when he watches the movie, shoot his face.

- The film ends with the words of Zidan that God is the greatest playwright. Do you think that God really loves football, that he is a fan?

The Creator talks with the world today through huge sporting events

- I think, and this is the basis of the huge metaphor, with the help of which we build the whole narrative of the game, that the Creator talks with the world today through huge sporting events. He left the temples, from churches, he thus organizes his sermon or his performance that he must learn to read. But sometimes such incidents are performed in the sport that it becomes obvious to everyone. The 2006 World Cup turned out to be a huge, incredible preaching of the Creator, which just struck me. Therefore, I do not just hypothetically think, I really survived this as an incredible shock, as a shock.

- The collision of Zidane and Materezzi is decorated in the film as the Cross the Way, only the "stations" are not 14, but 4. That's right?

Look at the history of football as a performance staged by the Creator

- Including, yes. It is also amazing there that football is a real text of life. The incredible coincidence is striking that is striking this: the final match of the 2006 championship began with the fact that, due to the mistake of Materezzi, which was not yet clarified whether someone’s leg was stuck there, Zidan was approaching the ball and makes an incredible blow that no one could predict. The ball flies to the bar, hits the upper bar, flies down, returns to the bar and flies out of the gate. It was immediately unclear whether it was a goal or not, but the goal was still. And then, this is an amazing rhyme with which in my perception the sensation of the text of the Creator began, then when Truseg already on the penalty makes exactly the same blow, but the ball does not fall beyond the line of the gate - this is so awesome, this rhyme! And between one and the other a penalty is the incident between Zidan and Materezzi. Here, from this triangle, from this incident, this film began for me and the entire subsequent research and directorial history.

- How does theater director look at the stadium? After all, this is a performance that is endlessly repeated, and everything is approximately the same. Will it get bored in the end?

- We also drink wine, it is approximately one taste, but the pleasure is resuming all the time. I thought that the order was made to me, I have to look at the history of football as a play staged by the Creator. I even somehow realized this order. It is clear why I should do this with my friends, because I am a theater director. Then I will see the performance of fate, it will open to me in all its nuances. So it happened. And since then, after this enormous work (the most intense period lasted three years), I am already otherwise than at the performance, in principle, I can’t look at the sport. And this is one of the most exciting theatrical processes that I have ever managed to meet.

- Can I put a football match in the theater?

My dream is to make a male ballet in which this mystery will unfold

- Yes, I wanted and want to make a ballet in the form of a final match now. Because incredibly expressive football plastic. I had to study a huge number of football photos. Photographers often take pictures how football players hang in the air - this is such plastic expressiveness! I have collected a whole collection related to these pictures. And my dream is to make a men's ballet in which this mystery will unfold and will be open through the bodily language, through dance plasticism. There is a whole tradition and many attempts to embody sports on the territory of the ballet. A special envy exists in theatrical plasticity to the dramatic reality and plastic expressiveness of sports.

-Leni Rifenshtal did something similar in the film "Olympia". But, recalling this, you still experience not only delight, but also horror, because a lot in these mass football competitions reminds of fascism-and in the film you also talk about the awakening of nationalist feelings and the spirits of the stadium, which was built under Hitler in 1936. Are these logical thoughts?

Fascism is the reverse side of the mass spectacle

- Certainly. This is the reverse side of the mass holiday. Because the nature of man is so arranged. We say that Leni Rifenstal asked Jesse Owens to repeat the jump. We all thought that this was a fixed jump, but in fact this wonderful athlete had to repeat our own record. This struck me - the importance of repeating in sports ... Yes, of course, fascism is the reverse side of the mass spectacle, a mass act, and you will not get anywhere from this. A person is involved in an incredible holiday, in such volcanoes of happiness, and on the other hand, in the same place, at the same moment, he finds himself on the back of his own being. And all this sometimes becomes terrible. This is true. I'm talking about this in the film.

- One of the main topics of the film is the discussion, which then took place both on television screens and among the fans, who told Zidana to return to the French national team for his voice. Is it unconditionally God spoke with Zidan, as with Moses?

Zidan is a believer, intuitively attentive to the patterns of life

- It doesn't matter. An angel in Judaism, for example, is just a postman, a messenger, he must deliver news. This is not a kind of madness in the style of Jeanne d'Arc, a voice A or vision, no, this is a specific person who conveys something. It is very important here how a person himself perceives and worries it. It is obvious to me that Zidan perceived this as a kind of higher instruction. He is a believer, intuitively very attentive to the patterns of life, and through attention to the pattern the path of the Creator opens. Therefore, for me it is an obviously angelic voice. He himself said that it was his brother. Perhaps brother is not the point.

- It was he who began to speak when he was produced, tortured with mockery.

- He himself said that this was a mystical experience. This, of course, is enough for me. An interview with France Football looks like Pushkin’s poem “The Prophet”, he seemed to replace his entire inner nature, voice, soul, body. And then they told him: "Rise, prophet, and see, and heed." In essence, he turned into a hero-creator. Fate, nature and the Creator himself turned both Materezzi and Zidane into the main characters of his representation. And it struck me too. At the moment when I watched the match, I could not even imagine how many details would reveal to me confirming this hypothesis. In addition to this two -hour film, which these days are shown in Locarno, we also made a seven -hour video - or a television novel, a huge, where there are much more details. In two variations, this topic is disclosed narrative and analytically.

- You say in the film that football teaches that the body should obey the soul. How does this training take place?

It is necessary to restrain your picture of the world in front of another picture of the world

- Through a huge number of bruises and errors. The body itself sometimes behaves very accurately and reacts very accurately. But football, as a strategic game, rises above the range of this accuracy, makes an integral dedication to its most interesting adherents. In fact, football, like sport, in its highest manifestations, is a mysterious training act for all its participants, heroes. At some point, they begin to understand that there is not enough bodily as such, it is necessary to rise above the body and control it. This understanding comes only to special athletes whom I call participants in the mystery.

- What is the edification of Zidane's history?

- If you very briefly say that the keyword is "restrain yourself." I formulate this like this: it is not enough to restrain myself, we must restrain your picture of the world in front of another picture of the world. In this sense, the essence of this message, which was made at the 2006 World Cup and is possibly repeated from the championship to the championship or on other sports events, as such a special foreign signal, the most important thing for humanity is to give the opportunity to exist to another world and restrain his own picture of the world before another picture of the world. This is the main message with which we were lucky to deal with.