Senna

A portrait of the artist as a young Formula One racer, director Asif Kapadia’s doleful documentary revisits the career of three-time world champion Ayrton Senna, whose 1994 death from a crash at age 34 was a national tragedy in his native Brazil. The film, like the life, seems lamentably incomplete, necessarily an assembly of home movies and select archival footage. It includes testimony from family, fans and formidable rival Alain Prost. And it delivers what seem like Senna essentials: the faith in God and lack of faith in F1 politics, the stoic sex appeal, and the talent for handling slippery surfaces. As for the mysterious “intellect” to which several commentators refer, that remains intangible. Maybe it’s enough to see disaster looming in his sad eyes. In the end, we know this about the driver: He was driven.