This documentary sets out to tell the story of how well known footballer Cristiano Ronaldo made his rise from a youngster all the way to being the best footballer the premier league, and the world, has ever seen. This film has no narrator or voice of god. The narrative is purely described through the interviews and archive footage shown in the film. |
This documentary is unlike most, in the way that it has title slides to show part by part his journey. These title slides I think work well as it allows the film maker to break things down in detail about Ronaldo’s rise to the top, rather than just talking about it in general. This is effective as it allows the audience to be gripped by the little things in his career, which may not have been widely known, making people then watch on for more information. These techniques also clearly allows the narrative structure to be forced onto the audience as the title screen are literally telling them what the stages of his career were, showing how his journey has taken place. After most of these title screens there will be a piece of archive footage that displays what the title screen says. For example, when one says free kicks, there is a spell or archive footage which show some of his best free kicks. There is a lot archive footage mixed in with the interviews, just to elaborate and back up what is being said. I think this is effective as if the audience is confused or unsure on what the interviewee is saying, then the archive footage would be able to clear up that confusion and be able to visually explain what they are saying. The archive footage also acts as a cover for when there is a part in an interview that the film maker needs to put in, but isn’t at the same time as the interviewee speaking about something else. This allows the film makers to put the two pieces of interviews together, without there being a big shot switch in the middle of the talking, the voice can just glide onto the archive footage. The interviews that are conducted in this documentary are very effective as they do not stray from the narrative, and they are very good at giving information about the subject. All the interviewees are experts in their subject, and they were all very well educated in the Ronaldo story because they may have had some part to play in it.
Overall, The documentary is very successful as the editing of the documentary makes it flow, and allows the narrative structure to be portrayed, along with the way that the interviews have been conducted. The way that they just give us all the information about the Ronaldo with the archive footage, makes it a great documentary.