Ultras review – love letter to football’s most dedicated supporters

Ragnhild Ekner’s documentary weaves together breathtaking collective displays around the world, but soft-pedals its less photogenic aspects

Here is a visually epic and surprisingly positive documentary about a maligned subculture: football ultras. Director Ragnhild Ekner is an IFK Göteborg fanatic, but she is even more of an ultra for ultras overall, and covers impressive ground here – from Sweden to Morocco, Italy to Indonesia – to stress what a universal phenomenon they are. While acknowledging ultras’ collective force – what Martin Amis once called “the Jupiter of the crowd” – her main line of argument is that becoming a super-fan is an act of individualistic rebellion against the suffocating political and economic status quo.

Ekner also insists that, as much as an act of opposition, this hardcore fandom is primarily about family. She, and others here, testify to the strength of this solidarity, to which the football itself can almost be incidental, and where belonging gives rise to a fervent creativity. A long sequence is devoted, threaded through the film, to the creation of tifos, giant banners unfurled by the crowd featuring club insignia or fantastical tableaux. The Göteburg effort shown here took an estimated 2,200 man hours, €30,000 worth of labour, all the work and materials donated out of love. The synchronised performance by the supporters of Java’s PSS Sleman – turning a terrace into a quasi-pixelated display by brandishing sheets of paper – is jaw-dropping.