Arsene Wenger Invincible. (15.)
Directed by Gabriel Clark and Christian Jeanpierre.
Featuring Arsene Wenger, Patrick Vierra, Ian Wright, Lee Dixon, Martin Keown and Thierry Henry. 94 mins.
In the way that it offers an intellectual surface to what is actually a straightforward film about football, this is a suitable portrait of the man who was Arsenal manager for 22 years. Arriving as an unknown French bloke in glasses and oversized suits reminiscent of David Byrne in Stop Making Sense, the bumpkins of the English football press decided he must be a deep thinker, a dangerous revolutionary. This film reveals that Wenger was actually just a nerd, an obsessive who really did live and breathe football.
Where the film is strong is outlining how his background in a small rural French village shaped him and what his obsession cost him. There are a few startling revelations: admitting he should've left Arsenal when the new board took over; his ambivalence about the new stadium that his on-field successes helped the club pay for. But really there isn't a lot of substance. Defender Keown says his “training was the next level” but we are not shown in what way; his management career before Arsenal is brushed over and, beyond his Invincible season when they won the league without losing a single game, the great successes of his first decade aren't much shown. His notion about the nature of success, "life is about millimetres," sounds like a rehash of Al Pacino's Inches speech in Any Given Sunday.
It doesn't help that a remarkable proportion of his best players have gone on to become big on the post-match windbag circuit. Keown, Wright, Dixon and Henry are good value but their contribution are over-familiar and it adds to a sense that there's very little new here.
It's an odd little endeavour. Why call it Invincible when his last decade at Arsenal proved him to be all too Vincible? Why release it now when his unpopular suggestion that the World Cup should be held every two years, made in his new role as FIFA's Chief of Global Football development (another area the film doesn't explore), has diminished his standing?
The film doesn't even show any interest in rehashing his achievements. There's precious little football action in it really: the viewer is supposed to be familiar with them already. There is insight but overall you may feel that it is Mesut Ozil of a documentary: stylish and with a few nice touches but doesn't cover much ground over the ninety minutes.
Directed by Gabriel Clark and Christian Jeanpierre.
Featuring Arsene Wenger, Patrick Vierra, Ian Wright, Lee Dixon, Martin Keown and Thierry Henry. 94 mins.
In the way that it offers an intellectual surface to what is actually a straightforward film about football, this is a suitable portrait of the man who was Arsenal manager for 22 years. Arriving as an unknown French bloke in glasses and oversized suits reminiscent of David Byrne in Stop Making Sense, the bumpkins of the English football press decided he must be a deep thinker, a dangerous revolutionary. This film reveals that Wenger was actually just a nerd, an obsessive who really did live and breathe football.
Where the film is strong is outlining how his background in a small rural French village shaped him and what his obsession cost him. There are a few startling revelations: admitting he should've left Arsenal when the new board took over; his ambivalence about the new stadium that his on-field successes helped the club pay for. But really there isn't a lot of substance. Defender Keown says his “training was the next level” but we are not shown in what way; his management career before Arsenal is brushed over and, beyond his Invincible season when they won the league without losing a single game, the great successes of his first decade aren't much shown. His notion about the nature of success, "life is about millimetres," sounds like a rehash of Al Pacino's Inches speech in Any Given Sunday.
It doesn't help that a remarkable proportion of his best players have gone on to become big on the post-match windbag circuit. Keown, Wright, Dixon and Henry are good value but their contribution are over-familiar and it adds to a sense that there's very little new here.
It's an odd little endeavour. Why call it Invincible when his last decade at Arsenal proved him to be all too Vincible? Why release it now when his unpopular suggestion that the World Cup should be held every two years, made in his new role as FIFA's Chief of Global Football development (another area the film doesn't explore), has diminished his standing?
The film doesn't even show any interest in rehashing his achievements. There's precious little football action in it really: the viewer is supposed to be familiar with them already. There is insight but overall you may feel that it is Mesut Ozil of a documentary: stylish and with a few nice touches but doesn't cover much ground over the ninety minutes.
