Senna (2011)

Only a few days after writing about The Thin Blue Line and 20years after it's release Senna shows just how far the theatrical documentry has come. Produced by Working Title for Universal on relatively large distribution/release and directed by Asif Kapadia, a BAFTA winner for his debut film, The Warrior; he'd never made a documentary before this.
I didn't/still don't know much about Formula One or Motor racing or sport at all. To me, it preferable to Nascar only because they don't insist on going around an infernal bowl and obviously, the crashes. Admit it, you like the crashes too. But I still think the sport is still so boring because everybody seems so evenly matched in machines and almost prerequisite lack of charm and charisma.
Almost polar-opposite to the drivers of today was Ayrton Senna, the Muhammad Ali of F1, the embodiment of work and focus and daring behind the steering wheel. Senna (the film) is made up totally of old footage of the man via home footage, interviews and obviously, the races, with notable friends, family and colleagues narrating over it. This works as opposed to the talking heads style of documentary interviews/information because it keeps you in the 80's/90's in which it's set; there's little sense of hindsight of it being something that took place 20years ago-more that it's unfolding infront you like more of a biopic.
At the centre of the film is the struggle between Senna and Alain Prost, his worthy adversary in the sport. From the film, you get the sense that Senna was unpolished talent-rough in the sense of being naive about the nature of politics in sport whereas Prost was a master of perception, on and off the circuit; who understood the what was unnecessary was not always being faster on the day. As I've said before about filmmakers and their antagonists, Kapadia knows better to make Prost the villain and he comes across equally if not more charming then Senna. The audience always pulls for Senna in their battles but we respect Prost totally. What Senna represents and what Kapadia captures perfectly is that he was a role-model of tenacity and determination and perfection in his craft. In the best moments of the film, he talks about almost transcendentally driving the car through the circuit - that his focus and determination attain a level of second nature- he talks about it like moving through a tunnel and his only concentration being the act of moving forward, not left and right. Just the pure joy of attaining that level of enlightenment, that he felt was like being touched by God.
Like I say, I think what Kapadia beings to the film is that it doesn't feel like a documentary, more that it feels like a movie with the story unfolding in front of you. I want to describe it like Titanic (except that its a horrible metaphor) in that, you know something tragic will happen eventually but you forget. Kapadia doesn't dote on that and i think that adds strength to the film.

I watched Senna (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Sunset Boulevard (1950)...