February 20, 2011

Senna the movie, reviewed.



Senna, the movie, sure has a lot of hype to live up to. There have been so many books written, so many documentaries that you have to wonder if there is anything new left to learn about Ayrton. The Freep, Stee, Styles and I went to find out on Sunday afternoon.

This latest documentary is trying to appeal to a broader audience than just the Formula 1 fanatics. Senna is painted very much like the Zen monk of racing, a man for whom racing was not simply going faster on a track but part of a mystical quest. Lose yourself in speed and you will find God, Ayrton describes a moment at the 1988 Monaco GP where he feels himself as if driving beyond his own consciousness. You remember 88 of course, Senna ended up in the Aarmco at Portier throwing away a certain win, something he blamed on dropping out of that mystical state and relaxing. The monk learns a hard lesson. but he bounces back, better, stronger.

A hero needs a nemesis and the man who comes out the worse is by far Alain Prost, painted as a whiny, backstabbing bastard who only won because he had the support of Jean Marie Balestre. In reality both drivers made Schumacher's tactics seem like sunday school stuff, culminating with Senna's suicidal/homicidal move in Suzuka in 1990. Much is made about Prost's contract with Williams forbidding Senna as a teammate but nothing is mentioned about Senna doing something similar to Dereck Warwick when at Lotus. There is of course no mention of Senna punching out Eddie Irvine for having the gall to unlap himself in Japan 1993. But also, not much is made of Ayrton's quest for safety (no mention of him saving Eric Comas?) a quest he ironically helped achieve in death.

So, is the movie worth seeing or is it just another rehash? Well, if you are looking for an complete history of Senna's life, this is not your movie. "Senna" glosses over many key elements of his career, for example there is no mention at all of his intense rivalry with Nelson Piquet, very little is said about 1993 but it focuses instead on his own drive to win and the political obstacles in his way.

The movie includes some fantastically restored footage and looks great on a big screen. There are many never before seen moments, especially interesting: clips from drivers meeting, one of Ayrton seemingly baffled by the evil handling of his Williams FW16 and unable to communicate with his engineers, a touching moment with Ron Dennis before the final race on 1993, a Brazilian TV interview with Rubens Barrichello so in awe of standing next to the great Senna that he can barely speak (a metaphor for his subsequent career?).

I think in the end, "The Right to Win" is a more complete and satisfying movie for a fan but the filmmakers have made "Senna" into a well paced and effective piece telling a very compelling story and it's great to see in a theater so yeah, definitively don't miss it. It's just that painting Ayrton a little less saint like would have made him seem more human and perhaps even more sympathetic.

Senna is playing in New York at the City Cinemas Village East on 2nd Avenue and 12th street, at 12:30 and 2:30 this next week.
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18 comments:

  1. So, anybody knows if it hits the theaters in The Netherlands?

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  2. Thank you very much for the review. It, unsurprisingly, makes sense that the studios want a easily digestable movie with Black and White characters, sadly. I never really thought it to be a super true to life documentary, and you guys seem to cofirm that.

    It's good that knowledgeable people like you guys can voice your opinions to the world like that.

    Thanks again!

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  3. Any word on a larger US release date?

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  4. I believe the blue ray DVD will be out in late march, probably the 21st (AS birthday)

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  5. one of the perks of living in the big city, also got to play GT5 before it was out at Sony too!

    great movie, i feel lucky to have had a chance to see it! I nearly went Sunday, it would have been cool to meet the guys behind the only blog i follow...

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  6. Thanks for the review AC, nice to see one a bit more critical and from a fellow racing nerd than the 140 characters of gushing praise I've had to go off on Twitter so far!

    Do you feel Prost is unfairly portrayed and also that the film is too 80s focussed? These are some of my worries from what I've garnered so far, but equally even those within the F1 circles have been reduced to tears at the end so it's obviously hitting the right marks emotionally.

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  7. I really liked it. They did leave out a lot. I got to see it in LA. They almost portray Williams as an evil tyrant who sent out a car that wasn't even close to ready after the FW15 was banned. I didn't like that too much.

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  8. Senna gets zero respect from me simply because he was more than willing to put someone else's life on the line so he could win. His crap about no longer being a racing driver if you don't go for a gap anymore is weak at best. You don't willingly put others life in danger so you can succeed. He was the sports dirtiest driver by far.

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  9. Great review and the trailer certainly has me pumped up! Cant wait to see it. Side note - my two year old son is named Ayrton. After saying the name 392 times a day it seems weird to see it in print.

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  10. "uh huh"

    Really? Dirdiest driver in the sport. Are you forgetting Schumacher?

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  11. I think you can make a good case Schumacher learned all his tricks from these two...

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  12. Yes. Dirtiest. He was by far the worst offender in the sport. He would willingly crash into another competitor to win like he did to Prost in Suzuka. Brundle has said on more than one occasion that he would put himself into a spot when passing that would cause a crash and it was up to the other driver to move over or hold station and have that crash. The man is treated like a God, yet he's the most selfish dangerous, and callous driver to ever sit in an F1 car. He's nothing more than a bully and a cheat to me. It's terrible that he was killed in a race, it's always sad to see that. Despite his talent he was a hack, a cheat, and dangerous. Not worth getting teary eyed over.

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  13. UH HUH, You need to stop being such a little wuss. The moment a driver gets into a F1 car they are at risk of dying. Masa for example. Being aggressive and pushing limits is how you win races. The person that takes less risk is the person that limits themselves. Racing is a sport. With any sport there is some kind of contact. In US football, you have players elbowing, biting, clawing each other in a pile up. In soccer you have player interlocking arms to throw each other off balance. In baseball you have a runner colliding with a catcher at home plate. In hockey, well it's hockey. Do I really need to go into more detail? In racing if I saw you tail loose grip I would dive bomb on you and cause you to loose grip with the nose of the car in the way of you gaining traction. Perhaps causing a forced drift because you are too afraid of bumping. Unless you are like me and teach me a lesson by letting it happen. That would make us one in the same. So UH HUH, if contact scares you, sports might not be you thing. Well maybe some. I hear Frisbee Golf is nice.

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  14. Alex,

    Football, soccer, and hockey aren't sports where you are in control of a ~2000+ pound car moving over 300 feet per second (not all the time of course). NONE of those players are at mortal risk like a race car driver is and especially when put in a position where his safety is at even more risk because the other guy sees fit to put him there on purpose. Drivers are at risk because of the dangers of driving that fast and hitting something or making a mistake, adding a driver who has zero respect for others and willingly crashes into others is added risk and not inherent to driving a car at a high rate of speed. None of your alternate sports examples and your other example about someone making a mistake and taking advantage supports your rebuttal to my saying a man that willingly puts others at risk for his own gain deserves no respect. In fact it has nothing to do with a man that CRASHED into other people simply to get them out of the way. Prost didn't make a mistake, he was rammed. Brundle didn't make a mistake in a race where he almost had his head cut off when Sennas car jumped his tires going for a gap that didn't exist. Learn association because you clearly can't comprehend the difference between taking advantage of a mistake and ramming someone on purpose. Taking advantage of mistakes is a perfectly good tactic, you'll never succeed without it. But ramming into people isn't capitalizing on another drivers mistakes, it's cheap, it's cheating, and it's obviously dangerous. Senna was a cheat and a dangerous driver. You cannot despute that. You can despute wether he deserves respect because your opinion differs on what earning respect is. My view is this man should not be heralded as a hero, he risked others lives just to win. His cheap and frankly bullshit 'going for a gap' comment is a childish excuse for ramming other people to prevent them from winning or beating him. His career was littered with incidents like that. He risked others lives and gets no respect from me because of that. I'm all for fast cars and hard driving, but I'll be damned if I race a guy like him and not knock his head off if he tried that crap with me.

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  15. Without giving away too much, I loved the film, found some of the footage that I'd never seen before fascinating, and agree that it appears targeted to a broader audience than F1 zealots such as myself.

    Odd thing is that I don't know that the film does a great job of providing that "broader" and perhaps naive audience with a significant understanding of the arena in which Senna contested, conquered, and ultimately perished.

    I may feel different next time I see it. The film may not be my ideal perfect take on Senna, but it comes so close on several occasions.

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  16. This review is pathetic. Obviously written by Prost fan. And above all - it's a review made by someone who think that a 6hr long (with ALL aspects from 10year long career) movie would be better. They also didn't mention about Senna saying we-miss-you-greetingz to Prost during his last practice session... AND?! And nothing. It doesn't matter. It's a 104mins long for theatrical, and some hour longer for BluRays. Face it - You'd be lame at making documentaries, dude.

    "They almost portray Williams as an evil tyrant who sent out a car that wasn't even close to ready after the FW15 was banned. I didn't like that too much." - this is most fucked up comment I've ever read! Thanks. :D What they did was to portray regulations always hitting Senna's on the back, You moron, not guilty Williams. Have You even watched the movie? o.O Senna was talking about regulations that banned traction control and all previously used stuff, and all of that made Williams hard-to-drive. I'm done here. Retarded review by a retarded person.

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  17. Kryxco, are you confusing the review with some of the comments? because none of that is in the review... whatever

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  18. Absolutely agree. Unfortunately the movie has brainwashed a lot of so called experts who weren`t around when Senna was racing into thinking that he could win from anywhere in the field. Just crazy. Yes he was one of the greats but also a very dirty driver & all Prost did in Japan '89 was hold his line & Senna did a similar thing in the European GP 1985 to Rosberg. I never understand why it is that people wanna rose colour dead people when during their life they had issues.

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