Maradona by Kusturica

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God is the only being who,

in order to reign,

doesn't even need to exist.

- Charles Baudelaire

Ladies and gentlemen!

On the guitar,

senor Diego Armando Maradona

from the world of cinema!

Buenos Aires!

How are you?

This is the song from

the movie called UNDERGROUND!

Jorge Luis Borges once wrote that

Argentinos remind him of

boats moored in harbours.

However, the brilliant writer hadn't

counted on Diego Armando Maradona.

El Diego was moored to

his mother

only until he was born.

After that, he resembled a boat

without a single rope on its deck.

Diego could easily be the hero

from my first film

DO YOU REMEMBER DOLLY BELL?

and the Sarajevan suburb of Gorica

could easily become

Fiorito of Buenos Aires.

It wouldn't be hard to imagine Diego

in WHEN FATHER WAS

AWAY ON BUSINESS,

playing the father,

who atones for his adultery in prison

during politically turbulent times.

And nothing would be

easier than to see

the footballing magician

acting in BLACK CAT, WHITE CA as the man

who is his own worst enemy,

doing everything to his own detriment.

This chapel is a creation of the members

of the Church of Maradona.

It reflects, it symbolizes

the image of Diego among his own.

This ball represents

Diego's sacrifice for football.

We'd like to ask everyone to please

take their seats, to get into place,

because when

Diego Armando Maradona arrives,

we'll start the press

conference and give you

all the details concerning

the big march in Mar del Plata.

Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I am very proud, as an Argentine,

to be riding on this train

and to repudiate that piece of

human garbage, George Bush.

So I want the people

of Argentina to understand

that we are going for dignity,

not for violence,

but to defend what is ours,

what is Argentina's, that's all.

It was miraculous that the planet Earth

wasn't knocked off its axis

when more than a billion people

all leapt up at the same time.

That was the moment

when we celebrated Maradona's goal

against England

at the World Cup in Mexico.

The Earth continued its undisturbed

journey around the Sun

because it was a leap for justice.

Even God himself

got involved in this case

the first goal against the English

was scored with the player's hand

even though it was

a football championship.

It was one of those rare moments

when a country heavily

in debt to the IMF triumphed

over one of the rulers of the world.

For Argentina! Goal!

By Diego Armando Maradona!

A most poetic goal!

Symbolic! Unforgettable!

To be treasured forever!

Diego Armando Maradona! The best

football player in the World Cup!

'WHO is that man? '

I asked myself.

Who is that footballing magician?

The Sex Pistols of

the international football scene.

The cocaine victim, who,

having given up drugs,

looked first like a Falstaff

and then like

an advert for spaghetti.

If Andy Warhol were alive,

I'm sure he'd put Maradona in

his sepia alongside

Marilyn Monroe and Mao Tse-tung.

If he'd been able to spend his

whole life on the football pitch,

he'd have been a happy man.

As it was, as soon as the referee blew

for the end of the match,

and El Diego,

the greatest footballer of all time,

had walked past the corner flag,

heading for the changing rooms,

all his troubles began.

What do we say?

It's me Bizoo.

Yes?

It's... it's Emir with the...

with the crew.

Hi, how are you?

Thank you.

- My daughter, Dunja.

- Nice to meet you.

I am very happy to see you.

Same here.

I cried twice because of him:

when we lost

and when he beat England.

When we talk about

the match against England...

we talk about it like this.

Bilardo was very intelligent.

We were representing our dead

who were sent to die

by their own country.

It wasn't like England pushed

a button and killed everyone.

So we had to go out onto

the pitch and play football.

Thinking about football,

but knowing that

a lot depended

on our beating England.

It was like a war,

winning a football war.

That's what spurred us on.

After the hand goal

against England,

everyone said:
"That was great,

what you did to the English!",

while the others threw mud at me.

I was so thrilled with that goal,

it was as if I'd stolen

an Englishman's wallet,

it felt like getting away

with a prank!

This good-natured roly-poly looked

more like a character from a film

about the Mexican revolution

than the best footballer of all time.

It was as if he had

stepped out of a Sergio Leone

or Sam Peckinpah's film.

As if he had just said goodbye

to some ladies of ill repute

and stepped into a room,

bringing the smell of

revolutionary gunpowder with him.

I was sure of one thing -

if he hadn't been a footballer,

he would have

become a revolutionary.

Maradona wouldn't need an incentive

to send him off into the woods.

He was a revolutionary at heart.

While everyone is defending

the U.S., I defend Cuba.

I don't care if it pleases people.

It would be much easier to say:

"Leave the U.S. alone."

But I say the Americans

let the Yugoslavs kill each other

because there was no oil.

Otherwise, they'd have moved in.

They were behind

the killings in Afghanistan.

That really disturbs me.

We watch them

killing people on TV

and the only ones

making money are CNN, Fox...

But Fidel is great.

I have a tatoo of him.

And you have Che Guevara.

Che Guevara, si.

See you tommorrow.

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