Although I'm a paid up petrol head I put off buying this DVD until I saw it at a knock down price in a supermarket. The reason being I was sceptical it would be anything but an in-depth look at the character of an extraordinary sportsman. That is chiefly because I noted the UK producers were Working Title, a successful British production company, but also one with a reputation of taking non-American stories and americanising them for greater profit abroad. I'm not criticising them for that but it sort of underpins my feelings about this film.
I found it a curious experience watching this film and sort of difficult to explain, but let me try by saying imagine a film about a legendary driver in the US's favourite motor sport NASCAR where say most of the narration was provided by a non NASCAR loving nation say the UK, and the presence of the host nation had been reduced to almost non-existent. Confused? Let me again try to help you out. In the opening sequences and throughout the film Senna talks or is described as moving to Europe to further his driving career. Well since all of the teams he drove for in all formulas were British couldn't they be a bit more specific and say the UK? I wouldn't visit Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Belo Horizonte and say I visited South America, I'd try and narrow it down a bit and say I visited Brazil!
Please don't get me wrong I'm not some flag waving nationalist with union jacks tattooed all over my body but as soon as I heard this I knew where exactly this film was going. In films aimed at mass appeal there is only room for two nations, two warring groups, and since Senna was Brazilian (the good guy) and the French had been chosen as the bad guys there was no need to go confusing things – so Europe it was!
That brings me onto the disgraceful way Alain Prost was treated in the film. He was never my favourite driver, but he didn't deserve this carve up. All that was missing was a black cape and a fiendish moustache! But he is French and so fair game for the majority of the American viewing public. Take the needless scene of Prost being verbally abused by race goers at the Brazilian GP (handily translated into English, just to make sure we all know he is a 'Cheese eating surrender monkey!') Formula One is historically a European and South American sport and we shouldn't treat our former champions like that not even when we are prostituting ourselves for the American audience. I suppose an audience that was assessed as having no interest in learning that by the time the average driver makes it into Formula One they have all stuck knifes into peoples' backs and lots of other dirty tricks besides.
'Saint Senna's' real character was only touched on when in one of the few honest scenes in the film he considers his own mortality after Martin Donnelly's awful crash, but we hear nothing about his 'game of death' with Martin Brundle in a Formula Three season (after one encounter Senna ended up parking his car on Brundle's head!). Or the revealing episode when he vetoed Lotus hiring Derek Warwick because he didn't want the team to split their resources between two top drivers, (surely a dirty trick only those nasty French people would do?). Of course in dramas when establishing character you can't provide a 360 perspective – you've got to have your good guys and your bad guys, but this isn't a drama, it's documentary about a racing drama – so couldn't we have been a little more honest? My biggest surprise regarding this film is the praise it has received from the F1 insiders, but then I got it – it's in their interest to get the US interested in F1.
So all-in-all a disappointing film about my favourite racing driver of the eighties and nineties. Yes Senna was my favourite driver and I'm sure if he was still with us he would view this fawning, selective audience production as an unworthy testament to his genius.
I found it a curious experience watching this film and sort of difficult to explain, but let me try by saying imagine a film about a legendary driver in the US's favourite motor sport NASCAR where say most of the narration was provided by a non NASCAR loving nation say the UK, and the presence of the host nation had been reduced to almost non-existent. Confused? Let me again try to help you out. In the opening sequences and throughout the film Senna talks or is described as moving to Europe to further his driving career. Well since all of the teams he drove for in all formulas were British couldn't they be a bit more specific and say the UK? I wouldn't visit Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Belo Horizonte and say I visited South America, I'd try and narrow it down a bit and say I visited Brazil!
Please don't get me wrong I'm not some flag waving nationalist with union jacks tattooed all over my body but as soon as I heard this I knew where exactly this film was going. In films aimed at mass appeal there is only room for two nations, two warring groups, and since Senna was Brazilian (the good guy) and the French had been chosen as the bad guys there was no need to go confusing things – so Europe it was!
That brings me onto the disgraceful way Alain Prost was treated in the film. He was never my favourite driver, but he didn't deserve this carve up. All that was missing was a black cape and a fiendish moustache! But he is French and so fair game for the majority of the American viewing public. Take the needless scene of Prost being verbally abused by race goers at the Brazilian GP (handily translated into English, just to make sure we all know he is a 'Cheese eating surrender monkey!') Formula One is historically a European and South American sport and we shouldn't treat our former champions like that not even when we are prostituting ourselves for the American audience. I suppose an audience that was assessed as having no interest in learning that by the time the average driver makes it into Formula One they have all stuck knifes into peoples' backs and lots of other dirty tricks besides.
'Saint Senna's' real character was only touched on when in one of the few honest scenes in the film he considers his own mortality after Martin Donnelly's awful crash, but we hear nothing about his 'game of death' with Martin Brundle in a Formula Three season (after one encounter Senna ended up parking his car on Brundle's head!). Or the revealing episode when he vetoed Lotus hiring Derek Warwick because he didn't want the team to split their resources between two top drivers, (surely a dirty trick only those nasty French people would do?). Of course in dramas when establishing character you can't provide a 360 perspective – you've got to have your good guys and your bad guys, but this isn't a drama, it's documentary about a racing drama – so couldn't we have been a little more honest? My biggest surprise regarding this film is the praise it has received from the F1 insiders, but then I got it – it's in their interest to get the US interested in F1.
So all-in-all a disappointing film about my favourite racing driver of the eighties and nineties. Yes Senna was my favourite driver and I'm sure if he was still with us he would view this fawning, selective audience production as an unworthy testament to his genius.