Cantona: Flower of Evil

Éric Cantona war ein begnadeter Fußballspieler und ein wandelndes Pulverfass. Seine wunderbar-eleganten Spielzüge sind ebenso legendär wie seine Wutausbrüche und Tätlichkeiten, neben Toren sammelte er auch Rote Karten. In diesem temporeichen Dokumentarfilm erzählt das unbeugsame Enfant terrible frech und frei seinen Werdegang, und Trainerlegende und Vaterfigur Alex Ferguson – mit dem zusammen er Manchester United in den 1990ern zu Weltgeltung verhalf – steuert ungewohnt unenglisch starke Gefühle bei. Die Eltern erinnern sich eher nüchtern. Cantona landet schließlich beim Film, sehr passend, doch ist dies nur eines seiner vielen Talente. (Alexandra Seitz)

Football has had its fair share of tempestuous personalities, but none has been more impactful on the popular psyche than French legend Éric Cantona, who played with a combination of elegance, command and brute force. Born in Marseille to a family with anarchist and artistic roots, Cantona’s early years in Ligue 1 found him jumping team to team due to, let’s say, behavioural issues. He crossed the Channel to join Leeds United before moving to Manchester United, leading Alex Ferguson’s team to the top of the Premiership and sealing his legend—as football’s avenging angel. Then he kicked a fan in the chest. Surely the most definitive account of Cantona’s rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall and rise, this clip-heavy documentary is structured around a small but significant series of interviews: Cantona himself, naturally addressing the camera while seated in a church; his parental figures—Sir Alex, Auxerre coach Guy Roux and his actual parents; and his child in waiting, Sir David Beckham. A cultural icon, Cantona was the first to realise that football was Hollywood and that he was a performer, presaging his eventual leap to a movie career that finds him continuing to feed the flame burning within. (Mark Peranson)

Stevan Riley, Ben Nicholas: CROSSING THE LINE (2016), PELÉ (2021), THE FIGO AFFAIR: THE TRANSFER THAT CHANGED FOOTBALL (2022)