Running time: 105 mins
Rating: *****

THE story of Formula 1 champion Ayrton Senna is told like a drama, but using documentary footage.

It’s an amazing piece of construction that plays like a reallife drama as Senna’s oftencontroversial career on the track is related.

Director Asif Kapadia isn’t a documentary film-maker but a Bafta award-winning film-maker of The Warrior and Far North. The locations for those two movies – the deserts of Rajasthan and the snow-capped Himalayas – show how far he’ll go to make a movie.

Senna uses F1 footage, archive film and home videos to tell Senna’s remarkable story that made him a hero in his Brazilian homeland and, at times, an outcast on the F1 circuit. Kapadia interviewed those who knew and worked with him, but no talking heads are seen, only heard on the soundtrack.

The result is a movie that will please not just F1 followers but even those who find the sight of cars roaring round a track more repetitive than exciting.

Having Senna as your leading man is a help, of course. He’s a charismatic figure and, like any champion, a complex personality whose motives and actions aren’t always understandable. He was only too aware how politics and personalities ruled the world of Formula 1.

There’s his rivalry on the track with Alain Prost, his religious beliefs and his pride in winning for Brazil.

The footage of the races themselves may not always be the best quality, but give a good idea of what it’s like to be behind the wheel of a racing car. Kapadia elects to play cockpit film of the final part of Senna’s last race – the one that killed him – in one long take. You know what’s coming but that doesn’t lessen the emotional impact when it happens.