Well, that was an interesting documentary.
I thought it was well-paced, with a nice mix of talk and action. I like the way you focused mostly on the players themselves, that and the lack of narration gave it a real "direct cinema" feel that I particularly enjoyed.
The camera work was very good overall, which only made the shakycam bit at the very start stand out by comparison. Was that deliberate?
I noted the one comment that women's football would never exhibit the speed of the men's game, but that the technical play is or would be superior. I had to wonder about the speed comment. If you look at the world marathon records, the current records are 2hrs 3m for men and 2hrs 15m for women. If you go back to 1963, 2:15 was the men's record, and the women's record was 2:19.
tables here Over a 27 mile course, and 2+ hours, it doesn't seem like that much of a difference. Granted, a football game isn't a marathon, but the endurance required would seem to be at least roughly similar.
It made me cringe to hear the young women talk about the names they had been called. I'll avoid repeating them here to (hopefully) avoid triggering moderation. But that was rude, especially the racial slurs.
If I had any faintest criticism at all, it would just be that the yellow letters with black outlines of the English subtitles were at times difficult to read for lack of contrast. Then again, with the wide variation in backgrounds, perhaps that yellow/black was the best possible overall compromise.
Oh, and when the lights came up, I was a bit disappointed to observe that roughly 85-90% of the audience was female. It would have been nice if more men had showed up to watch it.
Overall, excellent work. Congratulations on a fine film, and an artistic success.
