Günter Netzer

In the Rhineland in the 1960s, Hans Gunter, a rather shy young man in his mid-twenties, is one of the top players in the country at Tipp-Kick— a tabletop soccer game. When one of the metal figure players accidentally falls into a bath of photo-chemicals, it comes to life as a blond young football star, creating havoc in the life of its owner.

The three-part documentary “Beckenbauer – The Last Emperor” chronicles a life so exuberant it feels as though it were more than one. Torsten Körner, who co-wrote the highly acclaimed biography “Der freie Mann” with Franz Beckenbauer 20 years ago, has crafted a historically precise, at times nostalgic journey through life that connects Beckenbauer’s private life with his public one, the real with the imaginary. From Munich’s “Giesing” neighborhood—known as the “Glasscherbenviertel”—to the hearts of the German people and ever higher, all the way to New York; from the 1966 World Cup to becoming a global figure; and as the “Emperor” and a “beacon of light,” to the most famous German in the world: “Beckenbauer – The Last Emperor” illustrates, as rarely before, what constituted the modernity of both the soccer player and the “pop star” Beckenbauer.