Senna

I was in Zimbabwe when Ayrton Senna died in a crash at Imola in 1994 and even there it was big news. The film Senna from director Asif Kapadia is both powerfully enthralling and ultimately slightly frustrating. Kapadia takes the route of eschewing voice-over, instead relying on the accounts of those who actually knew him and archive footage to tell the story. The result is a fascinating story in two parts.

The first two thirds of the film covers Senna's quick rise to being one of the leading drivers in the world and his long-running duel with Alain Prost. The film paints an enigmatic picture of a man of devout faith, but who was also convinced the establishment was out to get him. Kapadia's tone is more reverential than objective and as such the fiery Senna is shown in a more positive light than the more calculating Prost. One effect with this foregrounding of the rivalry is that other key players (Piquet, Mansell, etc...) are more or less ignored, but this is Senna's story, so fair enough. However, the draw back of the reverential tone is the feeling that, despite the evident combination of faith and paranoia, the film never gets really gets under the surface and grapples with what really made Senna tick.

The final third of the film is taken up with Senna's last season and the events leading up to the fatal crash. This is where the film really packs some emotional wallop. Showing Senna's reactions to the earlier crashes of Rubens Barrichello and the fatal crash of Roland Ratzenberger. There is a kind of horrible inevitability building and when they cut to onboard cameras on Senna's car for the race itself, it becomes almost unbearable. One of the things that strikes you is just how unlucky he was - his crash looked by far the most innocuous of the three (if anything, Barrichello's looked the most horrific and he survived).

Overall 8/10 Often with a story this powerful in a documentary, it is very difficult to actually evaluate how good the film is, but this is fascinating and compelling, if not flawless, documentary making.