The Last Dance

Or how hard it was to be (with) Michael Jordan. No, it is not a documentary that brings shocking information or the dark side of a legend. Not that it avoided controversy in any way (and there was a hell of a lot of it), but everything said here had long been known, whether in relation to Jordan, his teammates, the managers or the media. Even the hundreds of hours of unpublished material from the last season are a delusion, as 99 percent of it is meaningless training recordings. It's still true that Jordan doesn't let the media get too close to him, it's still true that he doesn't talk about wives, children, business or almost anything about himself. Yet (for him) this is an unusually open confession. So what makes The Last Dance special? Nothing. It has no social overlap from Sunderland or the unsportsmanlike appeal of Kapadi's Maradona duality. And yet there is one small detail that puts it on a pedestal among sports documentaries. Namely, the way in which it is all presented, how unrepeatable, informative, emotional and unique it is. It is nothing more or less than a small-scale recapitulation of the career of the iconic über-legend, who made also made the team legendary. And after nearly nine hours of watching, will you be even more convinced that Michael was unbearably competitive in everything he did, he treaded pragmatically (or arrogantly, swinishly and tyrannically) on the other´s bodies and certainly was not forgiving of himself and others? Well, that´s you, because you never won anything. (19/05/2020)

For me, Jordan comes off as a controversial and not exactly sympathetic character of a man obsessed with control and a sense of power, which the filmmakers manage to confront their star with. The series has a great structure and it's emotionally paced. Great job! (06/06/2020)

This is a fantastic documentary. Even though I’m not a huge fan of basketball, Jordan did have an influence on me. I even begged my parents to get me a ball.  Unfortunately, basketball shoes just weren’t available here then. Years later, I can appreciate certain nuances that weren’t important in those days and thanks to which everything about the end of the Bulls dynasty makes more sense. Lots of details, interesting opinions and expressions of emotion in a dynamic study of the life of a legend. (23/06/2020)