Maradona

Diego Maradona marks the second time that director Asif Kapadia looks at a volatile South American sportsman who dominated the sport they dedicated their lives to. With football being a bigger sport, Maradona is perhaps a bigger name than Senna. His status as one of the best players in the sport’s history is felt in the city of Naples where he was seen as a king or perhaps even a god. He was an incredibly gifted footballer whose immense talent helped Napoli win their first Italian league title. The film captures the ecstasy and importance this league title and Maradona gave to the city of Naples. The passion of the supporters may seem crazy and extreme to the uninitiated, but football has that power in cities with strong working class roots.

Glory certainly lies in football, but it also promises corruption, addiction and despair. Diego Maradona isn’t a documentary about the man’s footballing abilities, its hasn’t got sports journalists waxing lyrically about his left boot for two hours. That’s not to say his talents aren’t a focus of the film, but its more about the man himself, the split of personality between sweet, loveable Diego and the volatile, drug riddled, cheating Maradona.

The film looks at why Maradona turned to drugs and why he fell in with the Camorra family. It’s a sympathetic portrayal but its also here where you can find the documentary’s faults. It seems that the film doesn’t take Maradona to account for the choices he made. Admittedly he was coerced and tricked into doing things he normally wouldn’t want to do, but there was that element of choice (the treatment of Maradona regarding him fathering a child from an affair is treated erroneously as a traumatic issue for him). Kapadia has a history of this as it’s an issue also found in the film Senna where Alain Prost was seen as the pantomime villain even when Senna was responsible for the accidents that occurred.

However, despite that Maradona, like Senna (and Amy), is an example of sheer, painstaking effort. 500 hours of footage is poured over and edited to weave out a narrative of a hero and a villain. From his own poor roots, which perhaps made him feel at home in a working-class Napoli (the sewer of Italy some called it), to his infamous hand of god, Maradona was a man with ‘a little bit of cheating, and a lot of genius’. The sound design and editing are impeccable, each tackle and slap on the pitch is endured by the audience as opposing players felt the only way to stop Maradona was to take him clean out. Such was his brilliance, eventually they struggled to tackle him unfairly, let alone within the rules.

The film’s artistry lies in the fact it can weave a narrative that’s tense, exciting and empathic. Even if you knew Argentina won the World Cup in 1986 and even if you knew Napoli finally won the Italian league (twice), it’s the anticipation of glory awaiting Maradona that makes it exciting. The film is a look at his downfall, but where it shines brightest is showing the mania that surrounded him. He wasn’t just a hero to some, he was a god.

4/5