Event
John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection
One Week Only: Friday August 31-Thursday, September 6
Written and directed by Julien Faraut and narrated by Mathieu Amalric, JOHN MCENROE: IN THE REALM OF PERFECTION revisits the rich bounty of 16-mm-shot footage of the left-handed tennis star John McEnroe, at the time the world’s top-ranked player, as he competes in the French Open at Paris’s Roland Garros Stadium in 1984.
Close-ups and slow motion sequences of McEnroe competing, as well as instances of his notorious temper tantrums, highlight a “man who played on the edge of his senses.”
Far from a traditional documentary, Faraut probes the archival film to unpack both McEnroe’s attention to the sport and the footage itself, creating a lively and immersive look at a driven athlete, a study on the sport of tennis and the human body and movement, and finally how these all intersect with cinema itself.
"a lovely meditation on time and movement, dedication and obsession, image and perception."
"as thrilling a vision as you’re likely to see on a screen this year"
"an amusing, hypnotic, whimsical, expertly constructed adventure in craft"
