Senna - Blu-ray Review

'there's no letup from corners whizzing by at over one-hundred miles per hour, no break from the shockingly bad protection afforded to F1 drivers in the eighties and nineties and no relief from the fatalistic movement towards the still-depressing conclusion'

Remarkably similar to fellow 2011 documentary TT3D, Asif Kapadia's Senna - covering legendary driver Ayrton Senna's F1 career - and Richard De Aragues's motorcycling opus should both find themselves competing for major awards when the end of year reckoning comes around. As it is, the unique nature of awards categorisation, disqualifications and politics looks set to ensure they both miss out. Don't let that fool you.

Kapadia's film both differs from and loses out to De Aragues' in terms of style, a shortcoming Kapadia seems to have embraced by only including archive footage for the entire one-hundred and six minutes Senna runs for. There's new interviews but no new talking heads, the dialogue instead playing over footage of Senna relaxing or, more often, racing.

The stylistic choice serves to suck you in to Senna's story to a remarkable degree. There's no letup from corners whizzing by at over one-hundred miles per hour, no break from the shockingly bad protection afforded to F1 drivers in the eighties and nineties and no relief from the fatalistic movement towards the still-depressing conclusion.

Kapadia's film inspires both anger and admiration towards the governing bodies of F1 and the drivers respectively and significant thanks should be heaped on Bernie Ecclestone for allowing the film-makers access to footage from a period that hardly covers the sport in glory. Credit to Kapadia too for not merely watching Senna admiringly through a long lens. There's elements of his dubious temperament on show here and time also reserved for the supporting players to shine. A well-rounded documentary, which falls to TT3D only in terms of its look and feel. Fans of F1 will soak it up effortlessly, whilst newcomers should approach ready to be wowed.

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'exciting, uplifting, inspiring and tragic, Senna is one of the best documentaries I have seen.' - Film Drivel, 8.5/10