One of my favorite conversations to get into is with someone who is passionate about something that I have little knowledge or interest in. Senna was a documentary that gave me access to Formula One, a sport that I would have never sought out on my own. Formula One, however, is only the setting to tell the story about Ayrton Senna, a man who risked everything in every race. There was never a comfortable enough lead. He was the secretariat of his sport. He had a vision on the track, understood how to get the most performance out of his car and simply drove incredibly fast.
The movie is comprised entirely of archived footage from the late 70's to early 90's. The gritty nature of archived film is a welcomed sight. Because the Formula One circuit is raced worldwide, the settings are always in interesting places like Japan, Australia, Brazil and Monaco. The races themselves are finely chosen. They are full of enough excitement and storyline to have been sole feature of the film, but the drama off the track was equally . The achievement of the film, I felt, was showing Ayrton's incredible poise amidst injustice. He was generous and surprisingly humble. The most captivating shot for me was in some extra footage that was played alongside the end credits. Ayrton gets out of his car mid-race and runs back to be the first to respond to a driver that is visibly hurt. The other racers pass by Ayrton as he is running to help his fellow driver.
The challenge of the film, for me, was not how they depict Ayrton Senna but rather how they depict his rival, Alain Prost. In the editing room, they could have made any number of movies, but they decided to include a villain storyline. I remember really disliking Prost, but wrestling with whether he wasn't too polarized.
Senna is in select theaters but won't be for much longer. Go see it if you have a chance.
