For soccer fans, Diego Armando Maradona needs no introduction. For the uninitiated, the hero-worship that the short, barrel-chested, now portly, 40-something Argentine generates is amply demonstrated in Maradona by Emir Kusturica.
Not only is the eponymous Serbian-Bosnian director Kusturica clearly under his spell, but some of the Argentine’s compatriots are shown to have gone so far as establishing a Church of Maradona, albeit tongue in cheek.
In this documentary film we see a shrine to the great man, a “disciple” initiated into the church by reenacting the former Argentina captain’s “Hand of God” goal (when England’s nemesis punched the ball into the net in the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal) and a couple marrying on a soccer field. The bride subsequently hitches up her wedding dress to punt a ball goalward before the groom scores into an empty net and embarks on a wild celebration. A child is seen reciting the Lord’s Prayer, but with the words changed to pay homage to Maradona.
It’s not all laughs though, as we see Maradona rail against US President George W. Bush, “a piece of human garbage,” and revisit the Buenos Aires slum where he grew up. In one of the interviews interspersed throughout the film, he talks about how his addiction to cocaine almost cost him his life.
Kusturica pins his colors to the mast at the beginning of the film, when he is described as the “Maradona of cinema” and recounts how for gods all is forgiven.
The film makes little attempt at even-handed treatment of its subject as we see Maradona “the revolutionary” meeting then Cuban leader Fidel Castro and sharing a platform with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez; Diego the family man with his parents, wife and daughters (but not his shunned illegitimate son); and sympathizing with the director at the sight of a bombed-out building in Belgrade.
Still, it’s not all rose-tinted, as Kusturica has difficulty pinning the Argentine down despite the film being two years in the making, and a guilt-ridden Maradona painfully recounts how cocaine blighted his recollection of important moments of his daughters’ childhoods.
It’s difficult to see how the film would have great appeal beyond soccer fans as the “revolutionary” status Diego is accorded seems to extend no further than attending some rallies, sporting tattoos of Castro and Che Guevara and spouting anti-US rhetoric.
Still, no matter what you feel about Maradona the man, if nothing else the film shows why he is widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best soccer player of all time.
We are treated to repeated clips of the “Goal of the Century” (from the same World Cup match in which he scored his most infamous goal) where he runs half the length of the pitch, breezing past England players as if they weren’t there, before waltzing past goalkeeper Peter Shilton to score.
Throughout the film, defenders are bamboozled and goalkeepers left looking like mugs as Maradona finds ever more outrageous ways of putting the ball in the net for Argentinos Juniors, Boca Juniors, Barcelona, Napoli and, of course, Argentina.
After a clip of one particularly audacious goal we cut to Maradona talking to Kusturica in the Belgrade stadium where he scored it. He describes how, having beaten a number of players, he noticed the keeper had advanced far off his line. So, after feigning to unleash a powerful shot, he scooped his foot under the ball to send it in a high arc over the keepers head and into the net before recounting with glee the expression of bemused amazement on his opponent’s face.
At one point in the film Maradona recounts an unusual way in which he honed his extraordinary skills. He recalls playing soccer as a child at every possible opportunity, even in the dark, which made playing in daylight a breeze.
Toward the end of the film, Maradona expresses regret about the devastating effects of his cocaine addiction on himself and his family.
“Imagine what a player I’d have been if I hadn’t taken cocaine,” he says. “What a player we lost,” he says with a laugh.
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