Senna (Asif Kapadia, 2010)

9/10
It's hard to believe, given Ayrton Senna's lifestory, that no one tried to turn this into a feature film before (instead of a documentary). It's hard to imagine any format besting what Asif Kapadia has done here though. The decision to combine voice-overs with entirely stock/archive footage is both risky and brilliant. The lo-fi fuzzy quality of some of the race footage is in stark contrast to the ultra HD/3D gloss that is so common at the theatres, and I think it does a wonderful job conjuring up some sort of nostalgic feeling in the viewer, even if you'd never heard of Senna outside this film. It was certainly the case for me. Instead of beating you over the head with testimonials to Senna's greatness, Kapadia makes you feel like he was an old friend of yours, and that nobody needed to tell you why he was so good. This nostalgic factor also makes you feel like his triumphs and failures are yours as well. It's an incredible trick and I don't know if I'll find myself feeling quite as much an affinity to a protagonist in another film this year as I did with Senna. Great story and an even better documentary.