Messi (4 Stars)

"Messi" is a sports documentary that often feels as if it would rather be a feverish piece of mythmaking than a factual account of a footballer's life. That is what makes it interesting. Instead of the polished, corporate style that dominates modern sports documentaries, Alex de la Iglesia approaches the material with the same exaggerated energy and restless movement that run through his fiction films.

The film is built around conversations in restaurants and cafés, with journalists, coaches, childhood friends and football figures discussing Lionel Messi almost as if they're trying to reconstruct a legend. De la Iglesia shoots these scenes with dramatic lighting and constantly shifting camera angles, giving even ordinary anecdotes a strange intensity. The documentary rarely settles into the calm observational rhythm associated with serious sports filmmaking. Instead, it rushes forward, fuelled by rapid editing, pounding music and a visual style closer to tabloid spectacle than sober biography.

At times, the approach feels deliberately excessive. Archive footage is cut together with such speed and excitement that Messi begins to seem less like a real person than an abstract force of movement. The film is less interested in analysis than in sensation. De la Iglesia treats football highlights almost like action sequences, lingering on impossible changes of direction and sudden bursts of acceleration with the awe of someone filming a supernatural event.

What's most distinctive is the tension between documentary realism and cinematic exaggeration. The interviews are real, the stories are real, yet the atmosphere often feels heightened to the edge of fantasy. That mixture suits De la Iglesia's sensibility perfectly. Even when the structure becomes repetitive, the film never looks anonymous. In an era where many football documentaries resemble extended television specials, "Messi" has the personality of an auteur film.