Cantona: Flower of Evil

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)

Back to Overview