★★★★☆ For me, Formula One racing has always been stultifyingly boring, offering little by way of pleasure except the guilty one when someone crashed. All those cars going round and round, the thunderous noise of the engines, struck me as about as interesting a spectator sport as standing on a motorway overpass. And yet I find I am wrong and Asif Kapadia, the director of this fantastic documentary, is right.
People who already love Formula One and motorsports will need little convincing and will be amply rewarded with the behind the scenes footage and a commentary which is revealingly expert and intimate. Those, like me, who have previously held themselves aloof, will be converted, the way many were to boxing with Leon Gast's masterpiece When We Were Kings (1996) and, more recently, cricket with Fire in Babylon (2010).
Senna's bright-eyed innocence becomes sorely tested by the combined machinations of his one time team mate and then rival Alain Prost, who stands as the villain of the piece and the wider racing bureaucracy who kept moving the goalposts to Senna’s disadvantage and the endangerment of the drivers in general.
The documentary is skillful and fast paced narrative made up entirely of retrieved footage, including some classic clips. Alongside the psychodrama of fratricidal competition between Prost and Senna, there is the sense of Brazil finding for the first time of figure of international standing. It helps as well that the period adds its own charm.
Whether it’s Selina Scott delivering a waspish rebuttal to the flirtatious Prost or the fact that the personalities in racing far outshine the more intervening invasion of charisma free replicants like Nigel Mansell and Michael Schumacher, Senna delivers both as a tale of a time as well as one of achievement and ultimate loss. Perhaps a significant achievement is this was one race where I really didn’t want to see the crash.
John Bleasdale
