Tag: Football

Ruth

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

This is about football, but, apart from a brief sequence at the end, there are no scenes of the great game being played. Instead, Ruth uses the sport as a means to explore Portugal’s colonial legacy, delivering a tale of a changing nation.

The year is 1958, the country is Portuguese Mozambique and the city is Lourenço Marques (now called Maputo), introduced in an opening montage as the “Jewel of the Indian Ocean”. Our protagonist Eusébio (Igor Regalla) is a young black lad from the streets, impressing everyone he meets with his devastating footballing skills. Playing for Sporting de Lourenço Marques, he is noticed by white Portuguese scouts for Benfica, who regularly travel to Mozambique to find players who can play for clubs back home.

As Sporting de Lourenço Marques is a subsidiary and feeder club for Sporting Lisbon, this floated move to Benfica proves very controversial, with the other side trying to do everything within their grasp to block the move. This all takes place against the backdrop of the fascist Portuguese regime and the events leading up to the revolution of the colonised nations of Africa. As a result, the treatment of the black man by, often patronising, rich white men, doubles up as a fascinating metaphor for Mozambique’s treatment by Portugal.

A free adaptation of true events, Ruth — named after the codename Eusébio was given during the lengthy transfer process — is a playful, intermittently amusing exploration of Portuguese rule and the bureaucracy of their football system. While it will be inevitably more interesting for people with some knowledge of either the Portuguese fascist regime or the intricacies of the Primeira Liga, Ruth offers small pleasures in its production design — bringing the colonial-era architecture of Maputo to life — and the affability of the cast. Its core issues stem from the overly labyrinthine plot. The editing cannot find always a way to bring the story together, slowing everything down when it should be ramping the tension up.

Ruth will work a lot better with people who already know a lot about the player as opposed to somebody coming in with no prior information. It’s going to connect with football historians, colonial studies students and the citizens of Portugal and Mozambique.

You can watch Ruth during the month of December for free with ArteKino – just click here for more information.

Freedom Fields

Posted on by victorfraga

Freedom is a very elusive concept. Progressive Westerners (myself included) use the term in order to describe the notions and principles that fit it with our diversity and equality ideals. In this case, the Libya’s Women’s National Football Team are fighting for their freedom to play and also to represent their country abroad. The country has just experienced a very sudden, violent and radical regime change. Freedom Fields is a documentary captured between the years of 2012 and 2016, immediately after the Libyan Civil War (Muammar Gaddafi was removed from power and killed in 2011). It celebrates “freedom” from a very Western perspective.

These empowered women are an affront’s to some of the country’s most orthodox elite. Such “Westernization” is heavily frowned upon. We see a religious leader express his ire on national television. God must be infuriated at the copious female legs exposed, he claims. Two years after the Civil War, the Team are told that they can not fight a tournament abroad due to their very own security. They abide, yet remain determined to change country’s attitude towards women’s football in the near future.

It’s remarkable that these women remain determined to achieve personal liberation and social transformation through football in such a conservative, patriarchal and also volatile society. There’s a lot of anger and frustration in the air. One of the females opens up her heart inside a car: “Women could play under the previous regime. They can play in Iran, Iraq and even places with Sharia law. Why can’t we play here?”. Perhaps the Civil War (described as the “Revolution” throughout this doc) wasn’t as liberating as many people expected.

The documentary provides some interesting yet partial insight into post-Gaddafi’s Lybia. The camerawork isn’t particularly impressive, but this is natural for a piece of guerrilla-like filmmaking with very limited resources. The biggest problem with Freedom Fields is that it’s clumsily edited and poorly contextualised. I struggled to follow the personal stories of the individual footballers. The narrative is often unintelligible. The political context is also muddled. We hear that Gaddafi’s supporters are still active and threatening to take back control, yet we never learn how their attitude towards women compares to the attitude of post-“Revolution” rulers.

At the end of the film, we find out about the fate of each individual woman. One of them becomes a doctor, another one sets up an NGO, while a third one is still fighting to return to her war-ridden native territory. Yet, we never find out about the fate of the National Football Team and the concrete achievements of the women’s rights agenda in Libya as a whole.

Overall, Freedom Fields is an inspiring yet sketchy piece of political documentary-making. It was in cinemas across the UK on Friday, May 31st, in the run up to the 2019 Women’s World Cup. On Mubi on Friday, July 31st (2021).

The Keeper (Trautmann)

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Set in WW2 and its aftermath in Britain, this looks at first sight like a football movie. However, it becomes something else altogether by taking a long hard look at the plight of a person living in another country that’s heavily prejudiced against his own. Sadly one doesn’t have to look very far in present day, hostile environment Britain to see that such attitudes are currently very real and out in the open. This means that although this ostensibly covers real life events from over half a century ago, certain elements will likely resonate with contemporary UK audiences well beyond football fans.

German infantryman Bert Trautmann (David Kross) is captured by the British in WW2 and sent to a PoW camp just outside Manchester. Despite the presence of a few hardcore Nazis among the prisoners, most including Bert are ordinary Germans caught up in the conflict. Nevertheless, the English sergeant who runs the camp would have all of them shot were the decision his and makes their lives as difficult as possible.

However Bert has something specific in his favour: for as long as he can remember, he’s loved playing football. A chance sighting of his goalkeeping skills by visiting shopkeeper and amateur team manager Jack Friar (John Henshaw) leads to Bert’s helping out at Jack’s shop although in reality he’s there to be the local team’s new goalie. Despite anti-German prejudice from Bert, his daughter Margaret (Freya Mavor) and members of the football team, Bert’s determination to make things work off the field and his footballing skills themselves lead not only to his eventual signing by Manchester City but also to romance, marriage and family life with Margaret.

The widespread hatred of the Germans by the English during and after the War here serves as the backdrop to Bert’s relationships with others. On an individual level, he always has to start by winning people over before they can accept him. Jack is motivated by the fact of his team’s current goalie not being very good rather than any altruistic desire to help an enemy alien find acceptance in England’s green and pleasant land. Margaret likewise dislikes Bert and his fellow countrymen for what they’ve inflicted on her country and countrymen, but being confronted with a real life, breathing human being forces her to re-examine the ideas that everyone around her unquestioningly accepts.

Such tensions are equally evident on a wider social level. Jack first presents Bert to the team as someone who can’t speak with a scarf round his throat, correctly guessing not only that the other players won’t take kindly to the German’s national identity as soon as he opens his mouth and speaks with an accent but also that they’ll be rapidly won over if they see him in action in goal. And when Bert turns professional his Man City career is dogged for some while by that city’s Jewish community leaders’ understandable misgivings regarding his presence.

Overall, the film has much to say about how peace, forgiveness and reconciliation can broker a path through seemingly intractable and divisive prejudices to a much better place. It also delves into Bert’s internal torment as to whether he could have done more to change the outcome of an incident in his past when a superior German officer stole a football from a Jewish boy, teased him and then shot him dead. This memory periodically surfaces in Bert’s head until, in the final reel, events take an unexpected turn to put Bert and Margaret’s marriage under severe stress.

Working through these difficult and sometimes painful issues is underscored at the end as crowds of fans sing Abide With Me, a Christian hymn that’s been wrested away from its church roots and come to represent a deep spiritual truth about British people gathering together to watch, support and enjoy football. This in turn comes to stand for an acceptance of those who are different within wider British society. A helpful parable indeed for the UK’s present, troubled times.

The Keeper is out in the UK on Friday, April 5th. Watch the film trailer below:

Mario

Posted on by Alasdair Bayman

Back in 2010, Germany striker Mario Gomez urged footballers who were homosexual to come out as they “would play as if they had been liberated.” Cut to 2018 and this call to arms from Gomez, who has since never stated if he is gay or not, the situation is as dire as ever. Being the only football player who has played in an array of Europe’s top five leagues to come out, former Aston Villa midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger felt “he wanted to tell the world he was gay while he was still playing in Germany for Wolfsburg, but was advised against it” – according to an interview with German journalist Raphael Honigstein in 2014.

The overtly masculine and competitive nature of the sport means that any small piece of humanity or personality shown by a player results in ridicule by the press and opposing fans. Touching on Hitzlsperger’s experience of being a gay man in the blatantly heterosexual world of football – with its oppressions – Mario (Marcel Gisler, 2018) focuses acutely on the blossoming career of the titular Mario Lüthi (Max Hubacher). Whilst in the U21 squad of Swiss giants BSC Young Boys, he falls in love with their latest signing, Leon Saldo (Aaron Altaras). Complicating matters further, Mario and Leon both play in offensive positions and the pathway into the first team is only for a select few. Merging career ambition with a formative love relationship, this Swiss-Germanic production eventually conjures up some pathos after a slow start.

Shy and timid, Mario’s life is conjoined to the hip with football. In early pre-season where a professional focus is needed, the club transfer in Leon Saldo from Hannover 96’s U21 Academy. Strong, athletic and good-looking, Leon appears the perfect fit to be nurtured into the first team. Competing for the same spot, the two eventually form a prolific on-field relationship, leading the U21 squad towards league glory. Seeing the prospect held by both players, the Swiss club decide to room the two boys together, in an attempt to strengthen their on the field chemistry further. Consequentially, their off-field understanding grows into a shared love and understanding of one another. Seen by another team member kissing when away travelling to a game, the two must thus face the costs of sharing this twofold relationship.

Bringing a delicate edge to Mario, Max Hubacher, in moments, achieves a tenderness that feels fully realised. Contrasted against the confidence of Leon, the two work hold chemistry in periodic moments. Such instances occur after a long period of the film establishing its characters and mood. A juxtaposition of the dazzling heights of Goal! The Dream Begins (Danny Cannon, 2005), the world of a young upcoming footballer includes moments of loneliness, anxiety and resolve. Throughout its lengthy running time, the glamorous lives of Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic seem like galaxies away from the hard demands of continuous physical exercise and intense periods of nothingness. Talent is one thing, but the drive to succeed in a competitive environment is another aspect.

From the moment that rumours surrounding their relationship get out into the internal system at BSC Young Boys, Leon and Mario’s lives change forever. The clean almost corporate-like qualities possessed in the environments of the training ground work against the deeply personable relationships held between the two lovers. Accompanied by a shockingly suppressive meeting between the manager and club representative, Mario is informed that it would be best for him to be seen with a woman to suppress the rumours around him and Leon. This particular scene, alongside the final moments of the film, does unearth a sensitive soul to Mario. Regardless, the journey to these two specific moments lacks the eloquence apparent in other young LGBT tales as Maurice (James Ivory, 1987).

Addressing a key social and sporting subject that does not appear to be high on the agenda of Fifa or Uefa, Mario, through all this, is tragic in its few shining scenes. It is appropriate to suggest that the professionalism that radiates from its lead character impacts its stirring core. Credit where credit is due, however, I am sure solace and inspiration will be found from audience members and professional athletes who hold their sexuality as a closely guarded secret. Gisler and his team thankfully do not park the bus and come out against their subject matter in an assertive attacking manner. Still, it is void of the masterstroke that would be deployed by Pep Guardiola in footballing masterclass against Jose Mourinho.

Mario premiered at BFI Flare: LGBT Film Festival 2018 in March, when this piece was originally written. It’s out in cinemas on Friday, July 13th. It’s available on VoD and DVD from Friday, August 17th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIGxpk9c-7U