At a crucial juncture in Asif Kapadia’s much-awaited documentary on Diego Maradona, that premiered at Cannes Film Festival on Sunday, an eloquent comment is made about the essential ambiguity in the Argentinian football legend’s life: “Diego has nothing to do with Maradona. But Maradona drags him everywhere.” It’s this personal as opposed to the public persona; the individual/human being against the player/celebrity split that one witnessed in the British filmmaker’s previous work — Amy (2015, on singer Amy Winehouse) and Senna (2010, on racing legend Ayrton Senna) — that lies at the core of Diego Maradona as well.
While Maradona is reported to have granted Mr. Kapadia — himself a huge football fan — full access for the documentary, he himself was conspicuously absent at the film’s premiere on Sunday night.
Mr. Kapadia’s film is not just about Maradona’s game, but Diego’s rags to riches story, the rise and rise of the underdog and the flip side of success — hating it when success gets too “clingy”, the inability to handle the media glare, the increasingly dysfunctional self, the drug addiction, the dalliance with many women and with the Giuliani crime syndicate from Naples. It’s also about the Dr. Jekyll-Mr Hyde schism in Maradona’s own charismatic yet complicated, reckless and self-destructive self. A life symbolised as much in the signature clenched fist as in the cocaine abuse. As his trainer puts it in the film, “Maradona” was the character “Diego” had invented to hide his weaknesses and insecurities. The twists and turns, the drama and contradictions of his life are more compelling than any piece of fiction. And that’s half the battle won for the documentary.
Dynamics of stardom
In that sense it is easily the third in his celeb documentary series in which Mr. Kapadia examines the complex dynamics of stardom. He had himself said in an interview to The Guardian : “Maradona is the third part of a trilogy about child geniuses and fame.”
Mr. Kapadia continues to deploy his signature narrative devices here as well. The larger fabric and template stay the same. No talking heads, no testimonies to the camera. It’s all about intensive and extensive research that went on for almost three years, sourcing reams of rare footage and videos (reportedly pieced together from over 500 hours of never-seen-before footage), TV interviews, recordings of the various matches and tournaments and then trying to shape it into a cogent whole with voiceovers from family, lovers, journalists, trainers, and Maradona himself to show the many perspectives on one hero.
As much as you get to see of him and about him, you are also left asking for more. There are references to being born in the slum of Villa Fiorito, of leading a tough life, the loyalty to his parents and supporting the entire family since the age of 15. But the major chunk of the film focuses on his SSC Napoli years. When he helped Napoli as well as Argentina discover a lost pride through national championship and World Cup victories respectively. It was the time when he was anointed God, his photo hung next to Jesus in every other Napoli home, and then he was brought just as easily down from the alter and marked as the Devil. All of it goes back to the start of the film when Pele talks about how Maradona had talent but was not psychologically prepared for the responsibility. And there is Maradona himself talking of football as his saviour and salvation: “On the pitch I forget about life and its troubles.”
