This afternoon, at the uneasy time of 12:15am on a Saturday, I was joined by a couple mates (also from the automotive blogging world) to go see “Senna”, which is playing at the Village East Cinema in NYC. We entered the theatre right on time, and joked that we were wondering who the other 15-20 people were in the theatre; and WHY they were there! Could there be this many motorheads willing to make it to the theatre at that time on a Saturday? Apparently so.

The film was quite lovely; made like a documentary—spanning from the beginning of his career in karting til the obvious end of his career. Touching on his youth, but showing some very rare and moving film clips with scenes I had never seen before. As a kid growing up in Detroit, one of the events I annually attended with my father was the Detroit Grand Prix, where I remember there was a time when Senna would win every year. The first year I went, i remember Nelson Piquet winning. So naturally, my favourite 2 F1 drivers became Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna.

(sorry, i took these pics with a mobile phone!)

I know that Senna was a character. He was competitive, full of personality, not afraid to speak his mind, and most of all a tremendous driver. This film essentially covered all of his positive attributes, and showed him in the light of a tribute. It was a fitting tribute. I had seen many clips of his races online, and a lot of this film I had seen in some form or another; but I have never seen any clips of driver’s meetings with the FIA directors, I had never seen some of the more candid interviews and conversations—–and maybe because I was too young—I never realised how much battling and political stuff was going on between Prost & Senna. Now it makes sense WHY i hated Prost as a kid—-because he was always batting with my favourite who was Senna.

I won’t tell you the full details of the film, because I feel you should watch it yourself. Seeing F1 in the movie theater was a pleasure, and although it seems like a collage of document film clips taken from many different sources; it was full of great commentary, great footage, and some truly moving moments. All in all, a great film; I am really glad someone made it (in this case, a gentleman named Asif Kapadia)—-you should all see it.

Senna is playing at the Village East Cinema in the East Village of NYC. (thanks to Xander for the tip!)

http://www.villageeastcinema.com/angelika_film.asp?hID=166&ID=fmj4747.79896806s137092v9.38