OSCAR-WINNER Asif Kapadia set the world agog with another amazing sporting film this year. It was Senna in 2010 that signalled the arrival of a major new voice in this area of filmmaking, and he returned to another major sporting figure in 2019.Place aside your critical faculties for a moment and consider this – at one time the subject of your latest work is regarded as the greatest footballer ever after Pele.Unlike the great Brazilian, Diego Maradona’s life is peppered by controversy and drama of the sort you will find in a racy airport blockbuster novel.
There is an even more than a hint of Mafiosi connections. Kapadia decided early on the film would focus on Maradona’s time in Naples, playing for Napoli. It was only six years but goes to the very heart of the character who is both Diego and Maradona - the distinctions are crucial and come out in Kapadia’s story.
His documentary approach was singular at the beginning and is now more often aped, but not everyone can put the pictures and words together as Kapadia and editor Chris King.
His documentaries are single character studies and what his skill has been is to reinvigorate the form. There are no classic talking heads in a Kapadia documentary – what you get is a very close-up portrait, told through the images and comments of the people, many of who are very close to the subject at hand.
He was about to embark on a relatively conventional documentary of Senna when protracted negotiations over rights for certain footage, led him to Youtube, and the idea he could tell this story with pictures and words from Senna’s own interviews of the time.This technique is intimate and painstaking – Senna took six years and Diego, Amy four and this over two – and all reveal our heroes in a different light and opens up new angles and perspectives on a person the public feels they already know.
Kapadia told New Zealand website, Stuff: “There’s a misconception that documentaries are somehow real. That we just find a lot of videos and join them together, and the interviews sit perfectly on top. But they’re every bit as constructed as animations or Marvel visual effects.”The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May – Kapadia is no stranger there, having won a runners-up prize there for his short film, The Sheep Thief, and he has been a regular even when he did not have a film to promote.
The film, Amy, blew many people away - and so did Diego Maradona. The opening is a tour de force and made all the more special when you realise that it was shot by two Argentines hired by Maradona’s agent at the time to shoot a possible film about the football maestro. That footage never got used for its purpose but Kapadia told many gathered at the UK film pavilion for a talk about the making on the morning of the evening world premiere that a team of people had to search far and wide for the film they wanted to use.Kapadia was very funny about his interview time with the man himself.
He had to go to Dubai to see him there and on the first occasion, such were the circumstances that Kapadia felt compelled to touch the man’s left foot and admire his tree-trunk like calves. He got short shrift but survived to return and on the final occasion had a team of people helping him – some remotely with translation and what question to pose next.
The film, Diego Maradona, received a standing ovation in Cannes and was widely applauded and appreciated. Will it enjoy the same procession to an Oscar, as Amy did? That is harder to say. Amy was about a recognisable entertainer, and the story is so tragic (at the end) that it is deeply emotional and Kapadia’s achievement in that is to carry you from ignorance or indifference to feeling her death like someone you really did know and care about.Maradona is the first living subject to get the Kapadia treatment, and there is no end to the story - it was one of the questions Kapadia posed to his interviewees.
Bluntly, there isn’t any – though it does feature a family reconciliation. Kapadia covers one episode of Maradona’s turbulent life from the back and impoverished streets of Bueonos Aires and through a young man’s acent to fame, adulation and riches. It is thrilling and engaging and more so, if you already know the outlines and enjoy reliving the football and footballers of that time too. Kapadia touches on the star’s links to the mafia in Naples, and his extramarital affair that led to a son – he disavowed until relatively recently.
Diego is the charming, sweet little boy who escaped poverty and a life on the margins through the talent in his feet.Maradona on the other hand was a hustler and a street fighter and someone you crossed at your peril. Kapadia covers both sides and it appears as though the man himself has not brought himself to watch it.
Kapadia is a working-class lad from Hackney and filmmaking wasn’t on the school agenda, until he started volunteering on sets and got the film bug.He studied filmmaking at the Royal College of Art and his student promise led him to make his first feature film in India, The Warrior. His early experience of shooting The Sheep Thief undoubtedly helped.
The Warrior’s central star Irrfan Khan is now an internationally recognised character actor but at the time was little known outside Indian TV.The Warrior won him the praise of one of Kapadia’s idols, Martin Scorsese, who actually telephoned him at home to congratulate him.It will be hugely interesting to see what Kapadia does next – his stock indocumentary remains high, and as an Oscar winner, there are no end of those willing to back him.
His recent foray into feature filmmaking has fared less well. Nino and Ali (2017), a love story set amidst the turmoil and backdrop of World War I and the absorption of Azerbaijan into the Soviet Union, failed to secure distribution.
He also directed a couple of episodes of the Netflix series, MindHunter.And so it’s full circle to Diego Maradona. We see everything - the genius footballer scoring one of the great World Cup goals, the unsavoury sportsmanship (in the same match) – hand aloft and poking the ball past England goalie, Peter Shilton – the parties, the girls, the…yes, the drugs or the atmosphere in which they prevailed.
Maradona himself was very enthusiastic about the film and was flattered by the attention of an Oscar-winning director. At one point it looked like he might travel to Cannes for the world premiere, but instead chose to have a back operation in Mexico and since then, his interest appears to have waned. Kapadia has made another absorbing film which may well stand the test of time and add to an already incredible filmography
