In the Realm of Perfection

John McEnroe is a legend of world tennis, and his match with Sweden's Björn Borg at Wimbledon in 1980 was recently the subject of Janus Metz's film Borg vs. McEnroe (2017).In this documentary by Julien Faraut-the French master of sports films-we watch a match that the American played against Ivan Lendel four years later in the finals of the French Open at Roland Garros. The film is not only about the result, however, but also the way in which the match is presented: an important figure is Gil de Kermadec, the broadcast director who, fascinated by the trajectory of player movements, employed the power of slow motion, or Serge Daney, editor-in-chief of Cahiers du Cinéma, who wrote not only about film but also about tennis. Another important aspect is how the events are re-created: the ingenious sound and commentary by Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Venus in Fur), along with archival footage and contemporary images, create a kind of essay on the relationship between film and tennis, which is guided by Jean-Luc Godard's motto that cinema lies, but not sport.