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Short Film (Full Length) – 1980
The theatre of sport is given full-blown operatic treatment in this National Film Unit classic. Footage from the French 1979 rugby tour of New Zealand is rendered in slow-motion and cut to a Tchaikovsky score. The result is an often glorious, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, paean to rugby. Balletic lineouts, driving tackles, and the dark mysteries of the ruck, make for a ballsy Swan Lake in the mud. It includes the Bastille Day French victory over the All Blacks. Directed by NFU stalwart Arthur Everard, it won a jury prize at the Montreal World Film Festival.
Key Cast & Crew
Acknowledgements
Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony Courtesy of EMI Music Classics.
The New Zealand Rugby Unions are thanked in the credits.
Music
Set to Tchaikovsky (Manfred Symphony)
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