I'm honestly not sure about the balance, but watching the film was an eye-opener for me - from the late 80's up until Senna's death I was a massive F1 fan, but evidently a completely naive early teen who missed a lot of the political undercurrents going on. For example, as a previous poster from the UK has mentioned, the perception of Senna over here was of a fast, aggressive, exciting risk taker, but also someone who drove dangerously and was somewhat arrogant. Prost, on the other hand, was well groomed, well spoken, was always seen in the public eye to be more of a gentleman, he carried himself well on talkshows, and was generally thought of as a technical racer - someone who relied of consistantly driving well rather than seat of the pants racing like Senna.
I was completely ignorant of the fact that Formula 1 at the time was very much a French run commodity, not that I have anything against the French, but the main man of F1 was Frenchman (described previously here as a villain, and certainly portrayed as one in the film - and lets face it, the guy knew he was being filmed in those press conferences, maybe he was a truly nice guy off camera but he sure comes across as a bit of an *beep* in the film!) and of course Prost was no doubt the poster boy. And there is no doubt, Senna was an outspoken maverick, and while the likes of Mansell and Piquet have made comments about it afterwards, Senna spoke his mind at the time, and he rocked the boat.
However, when you talk about balance, the documentary showed Senna in a completely new light for me in terms of his humanism - and the case I have made in other posts on this film, you need only watch his reaction to the fatal crash of Roland Ratzenberger - those candid, revealing bits of footage take the edge off the arrogant persona. No doubt I sure every driver who was watching that on the screens might have had a similar reaction, but we the viewers don't normally see that.
And, returning to the rivalry, to be fair to Prost, he does get quite a bit of time to explain his side of things in the film - and I think he also makes a few fair points. He gives a decent explanation about how on that one occasion he refused to yield the gap to Senna, and they collided. Lets face it, Senna did that kind of thing all the time, we can't prove it, but its quite likely thats exactly how it went down. And Prost criticized Senna for claiming he felt like he was almost in direct communication with God when winning races, explaining his own faith but understanding his physical limits. He still comes across as a bit of a villain in the film, but I think he manages to rebuff most of the flak that comes his way.
Ultimately, there will be no perfect balance, a documentary on Prost would probably reveal a whole load of previously unknown dirt of Senna, but you have to draw the line somewhere.
As long as you read between the lines, and honestly, listen to what everyone has to say, yes there is a pro Senna bias, but its still remarkable film.
Crash and Burn - Filmmaking Blog and Home of my Movie Podcast www.mysticjim.blogspot.com
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