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- This underwhelming documentary covers the 1970 and 1978 World Cups
- It focuses on how success at the World Cup was used for political purposes in Brazil and Argentina
- It is worth a watch if you’ve didn’t know too much about either World Cup and the wider issues at play
The documentary, Pele, Argentina And The Dictators is pretty short, but also, a bit underwhelming.
It focuses on two World Cup tournaments (1970 and 1978) and on the winners of each tournament, and the political climate in both countries during these World Cups.
Pele, Argentina and The Dictators
- The documentary relies on a mix of archival footage mixed with current day interviews
- It focuses on Brazil’s victory in 1970 and then switches gears to 1978 to examine Argentina’s win
- A host of stars from both World Cups are interviewed, including Pele, Mario Kempes and Tostao
- The documentary is only 43 minutes in length
The two World Cups are well known – with both countries under dictatorships at the time. Yet due to this structure of linking both World cups within Pele, Argentina and the Dictators, the documentary feels a bit disjointed. It comes at a time of many, many fantastic football documentaries including Finding Jack Charlton, Maradona, and Sunderland Til’ I Die.
Once Brazil is examined, it swiftly moves over to investigating Argentina’s win in 1978. With this, it feels like a very surface-level documentary – providing the bare bones of a two separate stories that creators tried to tie together. While the archival footage is a joy to watch (especially Brazil’s mesmeric football style in 1970), there’s just not much depth to the documentary.
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Rating:
Pele, Argentina and the Dictators feels like a missed opportunity. It would have been better to focus on each country across two episodes, giving much more depth to these important stories.
