Fotbal infinit

A fervent football fan and son of a player-turned-referee, Corneliu Porumboiu is unable to resist coming to film in his home town, Vaslui, after a childhood friend tells him about his brother’s invention: a new sport designed by modifying the rules of football. Where did he get this idea from? Right from the outset, the story of a wounded, solitary and hobbled life supplants an impersonal question-answer exchange with an inventor. The closeness between the filmer and filmed creates a form whose secret is held by the filmmaker of The Treasure (2015): this apparently dispassionate subject opens out onto a portrait of touching humanity. Laurentiu Ginghina is a government clerk demoralised by his failed attempt to escape to America. His voice seems frayed by the burden of a grey reality. But when he is filmed in front of his high school’s football pitch, at home with his elderly father, or in a work environment riddled with absurd red tape, he talks about his Superman complex – a pen-pusher by day, a hero by night. Is rethinking the rules of a game a way of reinventing oneself, of tracing out one’s own penalty area? One after the other, the sequences masterfully balanced between comedy and tragedy reveal the extent to which his “Football 2.0” builds a political and spiritual utopia. (Charlotte Garson)