  We study the path integral over reparametrizations that has been proposed as
an ansatz for the Wilson loops in the large-$N$ QCD and reproduces the area law
in the classical limit of large loops. We show that a semiclassical expansion
for a rectangular loop captures the L\"uscher term associated with $d=26$
dimensions and propose a modification of the ansatz which reproduces the
L\"uscher term in other dimensions, which is observed in lattice QCD. We repeat
the calculation for an outstretched ellipse advocating the emergence of an
analog of the L\"uscher term and verify this result by a direct computation of
the determinant of the Laplace operator and the conformal anomaly.
