Diego Maradona (12A.)
Directed by Asif Kapadia.
Featuring Diego Maradona. 130 mins.
This portrait of the stumpy cheating Argentinian footballer is two hours and tens minutes of unrelenting commotion and hustle, an insight into a life without peace. Concentrating on the seven years he spent with Italian club Napoli there is barely a moment when a camera, microphone or adoring fan isn't in his face. He is the Argy in the bargy. The only relief he gets is on the football field where savage Italian defenders try to hack his legs from him. It's a 12A but some of the on-field violence is X certificate, more wince-inducing than the fights in John Wick.
After two unsuccessful seasons at Barcelona in 1984, he joined Napoli, a team that had never won the Italian championship. For a boy brought up in the roughest slums of Buenos Aires playing for the shunned city that the rich Northern clubs looked down on for being poor and dirty – Vesuvius, Wash Them With Flames one of the opponents fan banners pleads – was a perfect spiritual fit. Maybe though he should have wondered how one of the poorest cities in Italy could afford the world's most expensive footballer.
Kapadia has previously made much-loved films on (Aryton) Senna and Amy (Winehouse) and this is just as good: a story you assumed you already knew that is full of insight and surprises. He gets both names in the title because the film is pushing the conceit that Maradona was the construct that Diego built to deal with the intensity of his talent and idolization. Constructed entirely out of contemporary footage there is no narration; voice-over contributions from experts, first-hand witnesses and Maradona himself are kept to the minimum.
The film's structure skillfully matches the chaotic hurly-burly of his existence. The idea is that the Camorra and the cocaine would bring him low, but ultimately it's the adulation that destroyed him. The Neapolitans idolized the man who had come down to bestow success upon them.
He was born at just the wrong time, when the sport's popularity was going to another level but the money was much less and players didn't have the layers of protection on or off the field they have now. It almost made me feel sympathetic to him. Almost. The film covers the 1990 World Cup in Italy but brushes over Maradona role as captain of the diving, wailing, histrionic, penalty scrapping Argentina team that got to the final despite only winning two games. We can forgive the hand of God in 86 and the drug cheating in 94 because the football was so sublime but outside of the Nazi XI in Escape to Victory and MK Dons the 90 Argentina World Cup team were the foulest ever to besmirched the game.
Directed by Asif Kapadia.
Featuring Diego Maradona. 130 mins.
This portrait of the stumpy cheating Argentinian footballer is two hours and tens minutes of unrelenting commotion and hustle, an insight into a life without peace. Concentrating on the seven years he spent with Italian club Napoli there is barely a moment when a camera, microphone or adoring fan isn't in his face. He is the Argy in the bargy. The only relief he gets is on the football field where savage Italian defenders try to hack his legs from him. It's a 12A but some of the on-field violence is X certificate, more wince-inducing than the fights in John Wick.
After two unsuccessful seasons at Barcelona in 1984, he joined Napoli, a team that had never won the Italian championship. For a boy brought up in the roughest slums of Buenos Aires playing for the shunned city that the rich Northern clubs looked down on for being poor and dirty – Vesuvius, Wash Them With Flames one of the opponents fan banners pleads – was a perfect spiritual fit. Maybe though he should have wondered how one of the poorest cities in Italy could afford the world's most expensive footballer.
Kapadia has previously made much-loved films on (Aryton) Senna and Amy (Winehouse) and this is just as good: a story you assumed you already knew that is full of insight and surprises. He gets both names in the title because the film is pushing the conceit that Maradona was the construct that Diego built to deal with the intensity of his talent and idolization. Constructed entirely out of contemporary footage there is no narration; voice-over contributions from experts, first-hand witnesses and Maradona himself are kept to the minimum.
The film's structure skillfully matches the chaotic hurly-burly of his existence. The idea is that the Camorra and the cocaine would bring him low, but ultimately it's the adulation that destroyed him. The Neapolitans idolized the man who had come down to bestow success upon them.
He was born at just the wrong time, when the sport's popularity was going to another level but the money was much less and players didn't have the layers of protection on or off the field they have now. It almost made me feel sympathetic to him. Almost. The film covers the 1990 World Cup in Italy but brushes over Maradona role as captain of the diving, wailing, histrionic, penalty scrapping Argentina team that got to the final despite only winning two games. We can forgive the hand of God in 86 and the drug cheating in 94 because the football was so sublime but outside of the Nazi XI in Escape to Victory and MK Dons the 90 Argentina World Cup team were the foulest ever to besmirched the game.
