#207 - Senna
Asif Kapadia, 2010
A documentary chronicling the career of Brazilian Formula One champion Ayrton Senna.
As this thread will probably indicate, I don't watch documentary films all that often. Out of all the documentaries I have watched, there has been only one other film aside from
Senna that focused primarily on sports - Steve James'
Hoop Dreams. I don't follow basketball or Formula One racing, but I definitely respected
Hoop Dreams as a cinematic experience for its use of NBA hopefuls as a springboard for an examination of subjects like race, class, and family, in addition to just being an emotionally powerful tale. With that in mind, I decided to keep an open mind about
Senna - considering the praise it has gotten, I figured it was worth a shot.
Interestingly enough for a documentary,
Senna consists primarily of archival footage captured during Ayrton Senna's professional racing career, from his 1984 debut to the collision that claimed his life in 1994 (with the occasional home movie thrown into the mix as well). As far as new content goes, there's nothing more than audio-only interviews with family members and racing industry professionals. It's an interesting take on the material, almost to the point of it being a flaw. When it comes to documentaries about past events, I'm so used to the insertion of present-day footage being used not just as a means of conveying information but also as a means of pacing a film so that it doesn't end up numbing you to the constant usage of old footage. Appropriately enough for a film about racing,
Senna offers no such rests as it guns through ten years in 100 minutes. In addition to racing footage, there's footage of other stuff such as press conferences, fan interviews, safety commissions, and so forth. I guess that's what counts for slowing down the pacing in the film, but unfortunately it works too well and ends up making the film drag. Even so, there are moments that are somewhat interesting, such as scenes that foreshadow the film's conclusion by mentioning other fatal racing injuries and Senna attending safety commissions to express his own concerns.
Otherwise, the parts of the film that actually feature racing tend to get a bit monotonous. Racing has never really been much of a sport I've cared for and watching race after race doesn't do all that much to keep my interest by itself. Senna wins some (and wins big), sometimes he loses (often because of his own mistakes, such as an early race where his lead keeps getting larger and larger until his speed leads to him losing control and, ultimately, the race). The film also tries to build some conflicts out of an otherwise affable Senna butting heads with officials and, most notably, his long-time teammate Alain Prost (almost as if the film was trying to manufacture a rivalry between the two to add another undercurrent of tension, but it naturally doesn't pan out well considering how the two ultimately liked and respected each other at the time of Senna's death). The film goes so far as to end with footage of Senna's fatal accident and the mourning of family, associates, and fans alike, before going on to point out that his death, sad though it was, was the last Formula One fatality to happen as of the time of the film's release. A bittersweet ending, but it's about what this film deserves. Though not exactly the masterwork I was hoping for,
Senna is still a solid enough attempt to put together an account of a legendary driver and the highs and lows of his journey to success. It may not transcend my general disinterest in sports the way that
Hoop Dreams did, but that factor by itself does not make it a bad film.