MARADONA BY KUSTURICA [Emir Kusturica, Serbia 2008] - movie review by Mandibil

The director, as the title indicates, is very much present in his own documentary about the famous Argentinian footballer. A fine decision, since he is present in many frames and narrates it with his very accented english. Getting into the head of this football semi-god is not the easiest task he has set himself.

This is not a film about football and in many ways not even about Maradona. It is rather a description of the madness that surrounds him and the mentality and weaknesses of people who grow up and live in the same kind of culture as he came from. Kusturica does do a couple of interviews, that clearly shows Maradona´s political "views" and thus, also what illusions he suffers from. The most interesting angle to me is the mix of hardcore Catholicism, football and revolutionary Marxism. It says a lot about a specific culture, the different kind of passions and ideologies they mix. Football is psychologically a male tribal warfare mentality that partly grows out of society´s rejection of basic male virtues. Religion grows out of family self righteousness and the need for dumbing down children, to make them stop asking questions about culture, power and the morality of the parents. Revolutionary Marxism, grows out of parental externalization of responsibility for their own "fate". "It is the capitalists fault" that we are poor, it is not because of any lack of ability or skills on the part of us, the parents, no ... it is some external force we cannot control, other than meet it with force.

The infamous football match between the England and Argentina during the 1986 World Cup illustrates this perfectly. Maradona scored two goals .. one that is revered as the goal of the century and another one that could easily be called the infamy of the century. He can easily take responsibility for his good deeds, but the goal he made with his hand is externalized by him as made by "The hand of god". Politically he is just as confused as anyone else in the world and his personal life is a mess of drugs and divorce. He is just an ordinary, low life guy .. who accidentally has an unbelievable gift for playing football.

This is a completely unbiased documentary. It merely follows its target around on some locations and garneres it with a few interviews and the feel is very much ... let us see what happens and record that. I am very sympathetic to that style. Some of the best documentaries follow this method. But it never reaches more than an average level, which i mostly blame the lack of personality of Maradona. To be true, there is actually not much about the guy that is interesting - from a non-football standpoint that is.

Rating: 4/10