Pele and Garrincha are both footballing legends in Brazil. Using archive footage, Gods of Brazil tells the story of these two men and explains how one became the World's Greatest Footballer and the other died a broken alcoholic at the age of 49.
ALEX BELLOS Interview
Brazilian football author on Pele and Garrincha
AJAX
Behind the scenes with the Dutch football giants
FOOTBALL ON FOUR Season of documentaries and films broadcast in 2003
Commissioner's
Comment Nick Fraser
Storyville Series Editor
Who was the greatest footballer of all time? Most money will be placed on Pele, but this film offers an alternative. It suggests that the crown should go to Garrincha (it means "little sparrow"), a diminutive, near-disabled adolescent from northern Brazil who preceded Pele by a few years and built the Brazilan team's international success with him.
But this film is a treat because it's made with an astonishing eye. The French director Jean-Christophe Rosé has made a series of films about sport, becoming something of a connoissuer in relation to the use of archive.
You can wonder at the goals scored, I watched the film again and again. But you will also come away with a greater knowledge of just how it was that football was completely reinvented in the early 60s by Pele and Garrincha.