Remember the controversial film that French midfielder Vikash Dhorasoo made that landed him in hot water with Raymond Domenech for its rather candid moments. Dhorasoo filmed the World Cup with a hand held Super 8 cam and caught his team making some very unguarded comments.
Well, the Substitute is now playing at the Berlin film festival and those soccer film buffs will get a perspective of the World Cup through the eyes of a soccer player who like Godot gets disillusioned waiting for his place under the sun.
“Melancholy instead of euphoria, loneliness instead of “one-for-all-and-all-for-one”rhetoric, a tragic hero instead of a glorious athlete – Substitute is the other documentary football film. What begins as a World Cup adventure, full of hope, turns into the diary of a bitter disappointment. The father (trainer Domenech) rejects the son (Dhorasoo) who is worn down by the waiting, the boredom, and the self-doubt. Sixteen minutes on the field are too little to give him a sense of belonging.”
Thanks to reader singe >>