MOVIE REVIEW: Diego Maradona (2019)

 

"Now this looks like a job for me,
So everybody just follow me,
'Cause we need a little controversy,
'Cause it feels so empty without me!"

I was continuously thinking with which quote I should open my review today, and what could be better than opening it with lines from a God appropriate to another God. As a reporter said in the film 'little bit of cheating, lots of genius,' for the historical game against England, it also suits, to sum up, this great player's life. I had no idea about who is Maradona, until the news of his demise. The reason is that I never followed the game. Also, I know many players of football, but Maradona did not play in my time.  But after watching Asif Kapadia's fantastic documentary 'Diego Maradona,' I felt like I should have known the game more so I could have known him already because he deserves the recognition. But I guess that's why I love to watch movies. It's the best source to educate myself about the world around me. 

'I am more interested in glory than money.' His journey of pain and glory, the journey from rage to riches gets exciting beginning in the movie, where he is on a journey towards a conference, journey towards from Barcelona to Napoli, journey to becoming God from just a poor slum boy, journey toward the best part of his life, which also led to complete destruction. He was heralded as Christ and then crucified too. With his racing car, we all are racing with whatever happened in his life before 1984, because you know, so much had happened before it, but that was like a trailer of an epic movie.

'The hype made it seem like we were going to play out another war.' Interestingly, the director connected war at boundaries with war at the ground. He displays that such big games can divert the whole country's energy, that winning is at the play-ground, can be as significant as at the battle-field. Maradona was hit by an elbow of a player on his face, but then 'Hand of God' helped him by little 'cheating,' he was fell down by a player on the ground, but then he rose like a giant and did a 'Goal of the century.' How magnificent that moments were! Somebody puts in the words about the game that 'If someone wants to explain the myth around Maradona, It's enough to refer to the match against England.' 

The most tragic part of his games comes the 1990 world cup. He had to play against Italy in the Naples stadium, and he asked Neapolitans to support Argentina against Italy. That proved his big mistake. People who put his photo next to Jesus in their rooms started to curse him as his team won the semi-final. This shows that at the end of the day, the game is bigger than any player. He found out it is in a hard way. It can be count as a big fatal blow in his career. God became the devil.

His coach described him as Diego in him was a kid who was shy and had insecurities, but Maradona in him was created to deal with business and media, who could not show any weakness. For a while, he maintained both, but eventually, Maradona overshadowed the soul of a simple boy with drug addiction, connection with the mafia, affairs, disqualifications, etc. As it is said, the greater the height, the greater the fall. He became manager and coach in his later life, but his game as a player almost ended when he left Napoli in 1994.

Asif's hard work is seen as he might have collected myriads of footage and videos of him, arranged and shaped, and created a story from them. In between the whole chaos, he could merge the footage of Diego sitting silently, looking with emptiness into the void. As I know, he does not show many other parts of Maradona's life, maybe he found them less interesting, or he is so big that everything cannot be put in a single movie. The background music sometimes becomes simple and sweet at Diego, other times as dramatic as Maradona, but it pleases to ears both ways. I hope I am not the last person to know about him now, and I am recommending the documentary if you don't know about him too, and if you know already, then…definitely go for it!