Les Arbitres / The Referees by Jean Libon and Yves Hinant in cooperation with UEFAFilm review by Trish Thalman
Michel Platini never had a red card. It’s true! The iconic French International Football Team member and then manager, Juventus player, and now President of UEFA, Michel Platini gleefuly states his claim of ‘no red card’ to a large group of smiling and relaxed, professional European football referees gathered in Vienna at a kick-off event for the June 2008 UEFA European Cup Championship. He nervously said he had never been in the presence of “so many referees at one time”.
What follows is an exciting, fast-paced, lively, ‘passion-for-football’ film at the June 2008 European Cup Championship which was shared between Switzerland and Austria.
It's not a film focussing on the young, highly talented, sometimes handsome, (not always disciplined ) well-paid football players. What we see is an accessible film relating the impressive and surprising insight into the lives of the world-class, well trained, extremely fit, mature and emotionally disciplined referees, who make the important and final decisions about the rules of playing ‘the beautiful game’.
These referees are the generally unacknowledged, often threatened, men on and off the field, who spend their professional careers running backwards, while looking forward, reaching into their shirt pocket to pull out the dreaded red or yellow card, writing a name in their pocket notebooks, or standing very tall and still, firm jaw, arm extended with finger pointing to the exit tunnel and ordering a player or team manager ‘out, get out’.
Using modern recording technology, the referees and their assistants (the ‘trios’) wear radios and headsets, so we have the ‘front row experience’ of hearing uncensored swearing, out-of-breath players yelling at a referee in their native language (what did he say?), and personal conversations between referee and assistants during the matches making sure they agree on the calls.
The filmmakers and recording technicians are given agreed, liberal access to the referees during the entire four weeks of the Championship. We get clear, in-depth telephoto shots of the referees on the playing fields dealing with decisions and disputes, facing up to the adrenalin-fuelled, often aggressive, players who hope to change the decisions by using either charm and pleading body language, or if that fails, down-right ugly language. Yellow card!
We are taken into the quiet hotel rooms where the referees-as-fathers are wistfully looking at photos on the TV screen while missing their children, the referee’s stadium dressing room with high tension before a match, the half time rest/discussion concerning a call, “good game” and celebratory atmosphere among the ‘trio’ at the end of the match. The film is spontaneous and ‘happening now’, with close-up shots of referees and players, hand-held cameras bumping along following referees into and out of the stadiums, or panning across the tight-knit brows of the men at the critical referee meetings where the names of those who will go forward into the next tier of match play are announced.
We enjoy the captivating, leading-edge audio and visual technology that goes into the production of this very ‘organic’ film. But we also learn at a major UEFA meeting concerning the persistent call for ‘video replays’ of referee’s decisions, that the players still do not use any technology during a game. They know the rules. They make mistakes. The game has referees who know the rules and make decisions according to what they know and see at the moment of a rule-broken. They make mistakes. The game is not foolproof. Football is not perfect.
A remarkable achievement for a film that looks into the professional (and in a few cases private) lives of the extraordinary men who devote their lives to ensuring that football is played to the highest standards of fairness and success for all. Some of the referees even receive a handshake and “thanks” from delighted players at the end of the match - when they win! I think that was a smile on the face of Roberto Rosetti after the last whistle of the Euro Cup Final match.
This film was shown on Monday night in Nyon as part of the Visions du Reél festival and there were questions and answers afterward with the film makers and two of the referees featured in the film. A DVD of the film will be on sale in Switzerland from 18 May 2010 in French and German. You can see a clip here on U tube which gives you a good flavour of what it is about.