Filming victory and defeat: cinematic images of the French men’s football team

As discussed by Michael Billig in Banal Nationalism, the performances of sports teams in major tournaments can become powerful symbols and used in order project images of a nation that transcend sport. This paper will explore depictions of the French men’s football team – and implicitly the French nation – in contrasting documentary films about the 1998, 2002, and 2006 FIFA Men’s World Cup tournaments.

The first of these films will be Stéphane Meunier’s fly-on-the-wall documentary Les Yeux dans les Bleus, which provides an intimate portrait of the team’s victory at the 1998 World Cup in France. This was a triumph that came to be associated with national togetherness and tolerance due to the racial diversity of the French squad. The second film will be Meunier’s sequel Les Yeux dans les Bleus 2, which follows the French team before and during their World Cup defence at the 2002 tournament in South Korea and Japan.

Finally, this paper will also consider Vikash Dhorasoo and Fred Poulet’s more experimental 2006 film Substitute as it chronicles Dhorasoo’s feelings of isolation and frustration at being a largely uninvolved member of France’s 2006 World Cup squad in Germany. Collectively, these films will facilitate discussion of nation projection during times of victory and defeat, the balance between focusing on individuals and the group, as well as the differing methods cinema can employ in order to depict major sports events.