IF anyone merited entry to the "known by a single name club", whose luminaries include Jesus and Elvis, it is the Argentinian footballer often held up as the best player in history. So why the need for Diego in the title of this documentary, you might wonder? Especially since its director, Asif Kapadia, who previously helmed Amy (about Amy Winehouse) and the Oscar-winning Senna, is such a fan of the one name title.
The title as is speaks to the idea at the heart of Kapadia’s engrossing film, one suggested by Maradona’s trainer in one of the many interviews – including with the man himself – that feature in the piece. Fernando Signorini believed there were two personalities at war in Maradona: Diego, the sweet boy from the slums who started out with the sole dream of buying his parents a house, and Maradona, the ego-driven monster who could not get enough of the money, fame, women, drugs, and much else that came his way.
In telling the stories of Diego and Maradona, Kapadia centres his film around the player’s move from Barcelona to Naples in 1984. The poorest city in Italy had bought the most expensive player in the world, one that no other club wanted because of the trouble he brought with him. Like Maradona, Napoli and its fans were outcasts. Rival supporters called them “peasants” and taunted them with banners screaming “Wash yourselves”. Some 75,000 fans turned up to greet Maradona when he arrived, and that was just the start of their show of passion. Yet by the time the Argentinian left Italy in 1992 he was despised and alone, save for his family.
Kapadia fills in what happened between arrival and departure with his customary flair. As in Amy and Senna, he has access to many hours of never seen before footage, with the rest coming from extensive mining of the archives. There is no narrator, with the story left to tell itself through the use of just the right film clip, photograph, or interview excerpt to illustrate the point being made. It’s a difficult, labour-intensive way to make a documentary but the result is thrilling. The viewer, fully immersed in the film, is asked to make their own mind up.
With Maradona, Kapadia was hardly short of material. It is all here, from the genius on the field to the carnage off it. That the story comes across as so fresh and revealing is testament both to Kapadia’s skills and the seemingly endless complexity of his subject. As we see at the end, the Maradona story is the media gift that keeps on giving.
At over two hours, Kapadia’s film has the occasional longueur, but otherwise it tears along, like the player himself heading towards a goal. The ultimate playmaker has met his match.
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