DIEGO MARADONA: Asif Kapadia Scores Again

Like so many of us, Asif Kapadia is drawn to archetypal “rise and fall” stories, but with an aim to look past the tabloid headlines and explore the damaged people thrust into the spotlight. That he repeatedly manages to achieve this aim while relying entirely on archive footage, both familiar and newly discovered, is testament to his power as a documentarian; he can dive into the life stories of public figures as well known as Amy Winehouse or Ayrton Senna, and find new, tragic dimensions to their personas simply by presenting pre-existing footage in a new light. 

Revives Maradona’s Story for a New Audience

His films feature new audio interviews which play out alongside the archive materials – but it’s the way he and frequent collaborator, editor Chris King, orchestrate a rich narrative using footage that’s mostly openly available for public consumption that makes him such a unique talent. With Kapadia’s films, you never get the sense that you’re watching a highlights reel of familiar news headlines, so much as footage that only existed in the first place for the director to construct a rich documentary character study around them.

Diego Maradona, Kapadia’s follow up to his Academy Award-winning film Amy, might be the best film of his proposed documentary trilogy on young people discovering the harsh realities of the spotlight. If Amy was only a few years removed from the tragic death of Amy Winehouse, every flash of the paparazzi’s camera capturing a woman about to die from addiction hitting all the harder because of that lack of distance, Maradona succeeds for the opposite reason.

Nearly three decades removed from the controversial soccer star’s dramatic downfall, there is a high chance that people who don’t passionately follow the sport (we exist!) may only be peripherally aware of how he became such a loathed figure. Delving back into archive materials both familiar and freshly discovered, Kapadia once again delivers a sports documentary that feels tailor made for those who would never have assumed they’d be interested in such a thing.

In the early 80’s, Diego Maradona was one of Europe’s leading players, who made headlines after leaving Barcelona to join SSC Napoli, a club in one of Italy’s poorest regions that had hedged its entire financial bets on scoring the world-class star. After a slow start, Maradona led the club to become European champions against adversity from richer northern teams, while on the world stage, he controversially led Argentina to a 1986 World Cup victory, knocking England out of the competition with the infamous “Hand of God” goal.

Fast forward four years later, and the man seen as a “God” by the people of Naples became one of the most detested people in Italy for his second world cup with Argentina, and his shady dealings with the Mafia (well known but purposefully overlooked due to hero worship) were threatening to come to light.

Goes Beyond The Game

For many years, I’ve been baffled by sports fans who celebrate the “narratives” of soccer; after all, you can’t find a complex story arc in watching groups of people running after a ball and kicking it into a goal ad nauseam. One of Kapadia’s greatest feats here is making me realise just how much I undermined this line of thinking, highlighting the under-reported socio-political stakes of each match for a financially struggling team.

SSC Napoli are belittled by their competitors elsewhere in Italy for being poor; one montage even shows various games where rival fans hold up banners accusing them of all having cholera, and one of the reasons Maradona is eventually seen as a “God” by locals is how he began promoting a positive image on the pitch, and how he spoke of the city. 

When he eventually becomes Italy’s most hated figure, knocking the country out of the 1990 World Cup hosted in the country (at his home ground in Naples, no less), you get the sense that these stereotypes began gaining traction again.

Even today, in the recent EU elections, 34% of Italians voted for far right party The League, who have their origins as the Northern League, who wanted to enact sanctions against the south to protect the north’s prosperity. That I can find this texture in a sports biography is thanks to Kapadia’s gift for wanting to explore his subjects within a context beyond the surface level controversy that made them so detested to begin with.

Maradona is easily the least sympathetic figure Kapadia has documented to date, but this film is less about the man, and more about how the man’s actions were responsible for unifying a region, and a whole nation. How a man responsible for upturning stereotypes and helping a poverty-stricken region become prosperous wound up becoming the most loathed man in Italy. How a representative of Argentina could help bring pride back to the country following the Falklands War, even if it meant breaking the rules to undermine the English players.

Diego Maradona is as much about the fraught political tensions of the 80’s as it is about its titular figure — adding a richness to the beautiful game that will likely win over a multitude of non-sport fans, with that same depth likely to keep soccer fans on side too by offering more than just a plain retelling of well-known events.

Conclusion: Diego Maradona

Diego Maradona is another triumph for Asif Kapadia, looking deeper into the context behind Maradona’s success and gradual downfall to offer something richer than the standard sports documentary.

Do you know the history of Maradona? Should he be seen as a sympathetic or scorned figure? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Diego Maradona will be released in the UK on June 14, and in the US on September 24. All international release dates are here.