FILM REVIEW: SENNA
The scorching sound of burning rubber and the smell of petrol explodes from the screen in this exciting documentary about the late great Formula One driver Ayrton Senna. Beginning with Ayrton’s early carting career, the film uses a series of documentary style clips, news footage and behind the scenes footage to create a rich tapestry of tyres and tears. We see the young, precocious Senna leaving his life behind in Brazil to chase his dream of competing against the best drivers in Europe. His ambition grows as his talent flourishes and, not content with a podium finish in only his 6th race, he moves to a bigger, better racing team in McLaren.
At McLaren he is teamed with then world champion, Alan Prost. Their relationship forms the dramatic core of the film with the duo starting off as mutually respectful team mates, before three championship deciding races drove them (forgive the pun) to be the worst of enemies. Their private jostling for position within their team spills over into a public war of words. Prost leaves the team after a crash between them denies Senna the chance of beating his great rival to take the World Championship title.
The rivalry is interestingly explored by film-maker Asif Kapadia as a competition between the politically adept Prost, who embraces the administrators of sport, and the spiritual Senna whose deep faith in God allows him to believe his fate is guided by a higher power. Prost is the calculating scientist, playing the percentages and the President of Formula One to win, while Senna is the natural racer, constantly on the edge with a tremendous will to win that eventually leads to his demise.
The build up to his death is laced with a sense of impending doom, Senna watches footage of Rubens Barrichello and then Martin Donnelly’s near fatal crash before he takes to the track at the Imola circuit in San Marino. We see the emotional and psychological impact of these crashes on Senna, and the documentary hints at his almost fatalistic frame of mind before he enters the race. This is probably the documentaries most viscerally thrilling passage as the director takes us on board Senna’s vehicle for us to experience his final lap before withdrawing to the television coverage of the crash – the effect of which is hauntingly beautiful and sad.
The film could be viewed dispassionately as just another talking heads documentary about a petrol head, but the finished article is so much deeper and multi-layered than the usual television fare. This documentary stands as a testament to a great competitor who became a national hero in his native Brazil, and who will be remembered long after the chequered flag is waved over this season’s championship.
Senna is showing at The Watershed, Bristol, from June 3. More info at www.watershed.co.uk
Words: John Barker
