Friday, September 14 | 6 pm
Saturday, September 15 | 8 pm
Sunday, September 16 | 5:30 pm
An absolute highlight of this year’s sterling Berlinale Forum and the 2018 deadCenter Film Festival, John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection builds its exploration of athletic perfection and cinematic truth around a series of experimental instructional films shot at Paris’s iconic clay-court tennis venue, Roland Garros, during the 1980s. Slowing down the original 16mm footage, filmmaker Julien Faraut reveals McEnroe’s truly singular technique—we watch breathlessly as he tosses the ball in service far above his head, and hurls himself well in front of the baseline. Originally making a point about McEnroe’s non-standard play, In the Realm of Perfection soon turns its attention to the tennis great’s quest to control every aspect of the game, amid one of the best seasons in the sport’s history, and of course, his legendary temper. What we see is a player playing himself (and losing) in this mind-bending look at the nature of sport, and cinema itself.
Director Julien Faraut | 2018 | In French and English with English subtitles | 95 minutes | NR | DCP
