Senna

We saw the movie Senna last night. It’s in rather limited release, but if you get a chance, it’s certainly worth seeing. Roger Ebert didn’t seem to enjoy it, but I think that the filmmakers did a great job of stitching together film footage from the period and letting the story tell itself without flashbacks or narrator.

And of course it is a great story. The story of Senna and Prost’s relationship was really worthy of Shakespeare.  I don’t think that this movie captures all of the subtleties of their relationship, but it does a pretty good job of making it more than the simple comic strip most people have portrayed it as.

If you don’t know who Ayrton was, the guys at Top Gear can give you some idea:

But I don’t think that you really need to know much about him in advance to enjoy this movie. People like Ayrton who rocket through life forcing everyone around them to adapt to their terms make for naturally compelling stories.

I never actually saw Ayrton drive. He was coming up through the ranks at just the time I stopped going to races. But I did see Gilles drive several times (this is the most amazing thing I ever saw at a race track), and I remember that same feeling that this was someone who wasn’t living life by the same rules as the rest of us.