Senna

As per MSNBC, 'Senna' is best movie you never heard of (link). That is probably the case for most Americans, not used to following Formula 1. Certainly not the case in Brazil, or even in Europe. The movie had a lot of publicity ahead of its release in the UK, including posters in the tube.

I could only watch the movie now, in the USA. It is particularly interesting to watch a movie in which captions are in English, and about half the talk happens in Portuguese. It shows it is possible to translate that way as poorly as it is done with translations the other way for movie releases in Brazil. Even more interesting is listening to a lot of people well-known in Brazil, one of them not appearing in the movie at all and yet having the most recognized voice in the country (Galvão Bueno). The movie possibly tries to give Senna a little more importance in Brazil than what he really had at that time, when a lot of political changes were happening. The main years of his career happened during the movements known in the country as “Diretas Já” and “Fora Collor”, which are totally ignored in the movie. Those would be better aspects to focus on than the superficial glance at his affairs with a few TV celebrities in the country. And while the rivalry with Prost is well explored, Senna’s friendship with Gerhard Berger was totally ignored, as well as his “local” rivalry with Piquet. At the personal level, a far better view of Senna is provided by an interview given in Brazil at the beginning of this career (link).

The high point of the movie, at least for me, is when Nelson Piquet brings up during the pilots’ meeting before the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix that a pilot escaping through the chicane shouldn’t have to go back against traffic to continue the race, as suggest due to the punition imposed to Senna in the previous year. All pilots agree, and Senna leaves the meeting, not before saying that issue is brought up by “someone else”, and this year decisions are different from what basically cost him a championship the previous year. Senna doesn’t say Piquet’s name, and yet benefits from his openness to talk about the situation. Maybe people outside the country wouldn’t know, but Piquet and Senna were embroiled in a legal process at that time. Senna, in an interview to man’s magazine, had focused half of the time on talking about Piquet and their ongoing issues. Yet, Piquet, older and more experienced, takes the high road over all such issues, and understands that their personal fights cannot be more important than the safety during the race. Both show little worry about politics, and one of the “features” of most of the very skilled Brazilians outside diplomacy: the freedom to say what needs to be said, and not what is convenient or easy to say. Senna would go on to crash into Prost and be the World Champion that year. Piquet would go on to win that race.