On Soccer: Zinedine Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait offers a very different take on a very familiar figure. Instead of a bog-standard biopic, 17 cameras track the former France midfielder - pre-chestbutt - as he propels Real Madrid to a routine Primera Liga victory against Villareal.
It might not be ideal date-movie fodder, but what Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno's film lacks in storyline, it makes up for in dramatic intensity.
No part of Zidane is spared: every bead of sweat, Gallic grimace and anguished exclamation is laid bare for our viewing pleasure, although in truth there is little enjoyment to be found. The film's narrowed artistic focus transforms Zidane into a tragic loner. He flicks, feints and forages as gracefully as ever; he sets up a goal and even gets sent off, in a neat piece of artistic anticipation, after becoming embroiled in a pointless brawl which precipitates the end of the film. Yet at no point does Zidane ever truly communicate with either the audience or his team-mates. He is utterly alone, the personification of solitude on celluloid.
Zidane was always the obvious candidate for such a forensic examination: that balding pate, chiselled jaw and red-raw temperament lend themselves well to the big screen. Like his compatriot Eric Cantona, "Zizou" was an actor waiting to happen.
But he is not alone. Zidane may specialise in the sort of existential angst so beloved of his compatriots but such tortured musings belong in the art-house rather than the multiplex. No, the real blockbuster of next summer would be an equivalent portrait of Wayne Rooney, even if such a film would probably have to be given an 18 certificate.
Rooney may be indelibly linked to the red shirts of Manchester United and England but, on the pitch at least, he leaves nothing but a blue vapour trail of four-letter words. It is the way he gives vent to his competitive instinct and nobody is spared the lash of his tongue.
The Merseysider launched a foul-mouthed tirade at the referee Graham Poll during a match with Arsenal in February 2005, an incident which prompted the National Union of Teachers to call for top-flight fixtures to be screened only after the 9pm watershed. More notoriously, he told David Beckham to "f**k off" as frustration at England's gutless performance against Northern Ireland last year took hold. Rooney may have been forced to endure the tut-tuts of the chattering classes courtesy of his regular indiscretions, but to a curious Hollywood executive, those misdemeanours mean nothing. His life story - from Croxteth tearaway to international superstar - is already sprinkled with stardust and the fact that he has shown a raw, human side so unusual in high-profile sportsmen merely adds to his allure.
What's more, this is a good time for shooting to begin. Rooney's tantrums are always more pronounced when his form dips, and currently the United forward is suffering possibly the most prolonged slump in his fledgling career.
It is unlikely the 20-year-old has much time for statistics, but were he to peruse the record books he would find grim reading. He has failed to score in his last five matches for Manchester United and has appeared overburdened by the weighty expectations placed on his broad shoulders.
Perhaps he has yet to exorcise the memory of his World Cup trauma, when he was red-carded for stamping on Portugal's Ricardo Carvalho and sent on his way with a wink from his Manchester United colleague Cristiano Ronaldo.
It is one of the new season's more peculiar ironies that while Rooney - the perceived victim in the whole unseemly mess - has floundered, his tormentor and team-mate has flourished. There is certainly little doubt that, on current form, Ronaldo is the irreplaceable jewel in the Old Trafford crown.
Rooney's frustrations were evident again during England's spirit-sapping draw with the mighty Macedonia on Saturday, when the number nine endured yet another barren afternoon. It is now over two years since his last competitive goal and 11 months since he scored at all.
It would be enough to make any footballer edgy, but for this Scouse firebrand the temptation to explode at each successive set-back must be almost too much to bear.
"Sometimes I get angry but I'm trying to hold myself back," he revealed recently.
Curbing his temper might turn him into a superior player, but it certainly wouldn't make a better film.
