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Asif Kapadia's portrait of Brazilian motor-racing legend Ayrton Senna is one of the UK's most successful documentaries ever. Rightly so, says Mike McCahill, it's a masterclass in montage.

Asif Kapadia’s portrait of Brazilian F1 legend Ayrton Senna roared off the box-office blocks to become the UK’s most successful documentary of all time, suggesting it came to transcend its presumed audience of petrolheads. Not that these latter will be disappointed: a masterclass in montage, Senna lays testimony from those who knew the three-time champion best over endlessly evocative archive footage, much of it previously unseen. For anybody conscious of the names Sid Watkins and René Arnoux, it’s a must-see.

Yet the film has a mythic quality that clearly drew in newcomers, too. In Senna’s on- and off-track battles with French driver Alain Prost, we see one of the great sporting rivalries developing – often at speeds up to 190mph. Never is this risk element more apparent than at San Marino’s Imola circuit in 1994, when the wreckage starts piling up, driver after driver is airlifted away, and Senna, for once, begins to appear wholly mortal. It’s a sequence handled with supreme sensitivity, as the chequered flag falls on a fine, thrilling, moving tribute.

 

Mike McCahill on 21st September 2011
View all 164 of Mike McCahill's reviews