John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection

Julien Faraut's 2018 documentary centres on John McEnroe's 1984 Roland Garros final. But it is not a sports documentary; its material is sixteen-millimetre instructional footage shot by Gil de Kermadec for the French tennis federation. That footage was meant to teach technique, so the camera follows the player's body rather than the ball. Faraut takes the material and turns it toward another question: does filming a person continuously make him understandable, or does it only produce more images. Godard's line about cinema lying twenty-four times a second is argued over inside the film. Mathieu Amalric narrates. The film does not offer McEnroe's outbursts as entertainment; it treats them as the natural consequence of a pursuit of perfection. The match in the final section runs close to real time. Who it's for: those who like essay films, tennis history and thinking about the image. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a classic sports documentary; the film offers no career narrative.