Pelé: Birth of a Legend (2016)

Yes, I know this movie follows every beat of every cliched sports movie about the underdogs. And I know it's a heavily fictionalized version of history.

But

1. They didn't make that stuff up about the actual World Cup games - that stuff is up on Wikipedia to look up. 2. Football really is that big a deal and part of the culture of Brazil. 3. Pele really was a football wunderkind. 4. My dad used to tell me stories about Pele and his ginga style of play. We're from Bangladesh. A country that is madly in love with Brazil (and also Argentina) every time the World Cup rolls around. Brazil is a huge deal to the people of Bangladesh because here are some folks who look like us, who grew up in the slums, who are beating these white European folks whose ancestors colonized us all.

I wasn't expecting it from this movie, but it touches on race relations, class relations, and the effects of the Portuguese colonization in Brazil. The fact that so many of them are mixed race is constantly brought up by the Europeans. (This is the 1950s, so of course it is.) But despite being mixed race, those who are black are aware of their African heritage (and we learn a brief history of the ginga style) and those who are white are aware of their European heritage. The scene were Altafini realizes that the rest of Europe looks down on him for being Brazilian despite his Italian heritage (which may be fictionalized, but probably happened to some other Brazilians at some point) directly spoke to the movie's theme about Brazilian identity. And the underlying theme of "be yourself; be Brazilian" was present throughout and somewhat heavy handed.

But none of the cliches felt cliched because it was all being applied to a new context. There aren't that many football movies or that many World Cup movies. And there are not that many movies about Brazil.

I actually don't even support Brazil that much during the WC because they've won just way too many times at this point! But back then they were underdogs, and this movie shows how they became legends.

Fmovies: I want to state first that I do really like Pélé, he is one of the best athletes in history, not only in his athletic performance but also in his conduct outside the pitch.

His compelling personality is well displayed and I cannot speak with certainty about his background, but I suspect that while it was challenging it was perhaps not quite as bad as it is displayed at times.

My main problem with the movie is the display of the national teams aside from the brazilians. It was at this time and unlike the depiction of the movie well known that Brazil was a good team, perhaps not the favorites to win, but by no means a complete underdog. The favorites to win were West Germany, France and the Soviet Union. Sweden who is antagonisticly depicted was a nation with many players at the very end of their career and though the population was excited at their nations participation and that for the first time (for the swedes) professional players playing in clubs abroad would be permitted to play for the national team. So people were hopeful that with homefield advantage and the addition of a handful of worldclass professionals though perhaps past their prime(Niels Liedholm 36 at the time and Gunnar Gren 38) that maybe possibly Sweden could win.

So the primary factual error here is that Brazil was by no means colossal underdogs and the Swedes were not as massively favored as depicted and certainly not as arrogant and demeaning as they are shown. Though there is some truth in their strategy in the final game, the swedes did hope to try and score an early goal hoping the brazilians would be unable to recover.(According to Niels Liedholm).

I also find it unfortunate that while racism is horrible and was certainly present even amongst my own swedish ancestors. It is very unfortunate that this media never depicted some of the really inspiring moments of people in this tournament. Because in the end Pélé have stated that the swedish king at the time went down to meet the players on both sides and shook everybodys hand and chatted with them regardless of what they looked like. For many people just like the king football have no color and whilst Péle has had to deal with his fair share of racism he has seldom dwelt on the negative, but almost always uplifted the positive.

For my parents who vividly remember this tournament and who have always held Pélé in very high regard as both a footballer and a person. It was rather difficult to swallow the depiction of his opponents(our national team in particular) and that of the tournament as a whole which is perhaps one of the most memorable world cups in history with Pélé the 17-year old wunderkind and Just Fontaine who set a record of scoring goals that to this day stands.

...because I don't remember when I saw a movie that was so highly clichéd... Wow.

It looks really good but the story has every cliché that you've ever seen. It's remarkable really.

All the tropes, clichés and tragedies are there. From rags to riches. Skipping the football shoes in a pivotal moment to play bare feet. Getting ridiculed for that. Somber music in notable beats. Beating the over class. Getting ridiculed for that before that. Friends that lose their lives. Promises. Full Metal Jacket style training. Losing faith, only to regain it..

Christ almighty. Why do people like this movie?

I need to read the other reviews.

Pelé: Birth of a Legend fmovies. The direction cinematography and music is just amazing. It is emotional and motivational.Didn't know about Pele so much before .Too good I am going to watch this movie whenever i fell down ..Thanks a lot.the movie was so emotional at times made me cry.The whole movie moves in a flow and you feel how much pain he has to take to get there.The movie also shows the situation of Brazil during 1950's.Music by A.R.Rahman was magical it blended so well with the theme.My respect for Pele has grown too much.The world cup scenes are accurate comparing with the score board of 1958 world cup.Hope to see more such movies .The movie is little bit similar to "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag" if anybody of you have seen it.I recommend you to watch the trailer first and then the movie "Pele"

Like the excellent Kevin Costner film: "McFarland USA" this movie sensitively shows how sport can significantly alter a people's identity (in this case the entire nation of Brazil was uplifted from a sense of inferiority within the world community, to a pride in their own uniqueness). The acting is good. The sports action scenes are remarkable (how did they get an actor with such great soccer skills?) and the music is by the great A.R. Raman. A lot of care was put into the making of this film, but a lot was lost, I feel, by having the actors speak mostly in English. And it wasn't dubbed English, it was the Brazilian actors trotting out their heavily accented English. That had the effect of taking away much of the authenticity the film had worked so hard to achieve. (That the real-life Pelé has a cameo appearance - and thus takes the viewer out of the scene's intended verisimilitude - is, perhaps, excusable - I can cut it that slack). One more grumble: the movie trailers announced: "With Rodrigo Santoro". I will see anything with him in it - he is a terrific actor. But he appears for LITERALLY FIVE SECONDS! Really! That is unacceptable marketing...'bait and switch', actually. But see the movie anyway. (BTW, I met Pelé in 1984. We talked for about ten minutes, and at one point, after we had been briefly interrupted, he put his arm around me and said: "So, my Brazilian-American friend, where were we?" He had a golden air about him, and yet was completely down-to-earth even though we talked about cosmic reality. To listen to my five minute audio recording about meeting Pelé, search for "Pelé And His Brazilian- American Friend".

Greetings again from the darkness. From rags to riches … a common expression that often leads to a paint-by-numbers movie. Co-directors Jeff Zimbalist and Michael Zimbalist are fortunate in that their "coming of age" subject is the globally famous Pele' – often considered the greatest soccer/futbol player of all-time.

Rather than revisit the career of the transcendent player who later dedicated his life to humanitarian causes, the film kicks off with a 17 year old Pele trotting out onto the pitch at the 1958 World Cup. It then flashes back 8 years to when 9 year old "Dico" was growing up in the slums of Sao Paulo. We get to see his relationship with his family Â… his dad taught him to play, and his friends were loyal to him and encouraged him to pursue his dream.

There are some similarities to "The Sandlot" as we watch the joy these boys have in playing the sport whenever and wherever they can Â… plus the origin of the somewhat derogatory and now immortal nickname. It seemed that Pele' was able to carry this love of the game throughout his career. We see boys huddled around a radio listening to the 1950 World Cup as Brazil's team was humiliated Â… an event that played a role in Pele' returning pride to a bruised country.

Kevin de Paula plays Pele' as he works his way up through the age groups and national teams. Often the youngest and shortest player, the film depicts him as a shy kid often out of his element Â… the polar opposite to the beaming superstar we so often saw later in his career. There is an explanation of the roots of the "Ginga" style and its ties to the Brazilian culture and martial arts.

For some reason, Vincent D'Onofrio is cast as Brazil's Coach Feola and we are forced to endure a tortuous accent that is basically inexcusable these days. There are also some exaggerations in the crowd scenes and shots of the press, though young de Paula underplays the lead. Colm Meaney plays George Raynor, the coach of Sweden in that infamous 1958 World Cup, and we do get a cute little cameo from Pele' himself.

The film does a nice job with the young man's childhood and progression towards superstar (the IOC named him the athlete of the century). He is presented as close to his family, and inherently quiet and calm. The match clips of Pele' that play over the closing credits are proof that a movie just can't capture the transcendence of his talent. Pele' is truly the reason it's "the beautiful game".