106 vs. 162.

There are two versions of this film around: the 106 minute cut that plays in cinemas and the 162 minute version that is online for people to grab, such as myself. I haven't seen the 106 minute cut, but I'm going to float advice anyway (mostly based from Mark Kermode's review).

If you're a fan of the sport or of Aryton Senna, see the extended cut for obvious reasons. There's certainly a far greater look into the man and his legacy than the other cut provides, plus extended commentary on the sport and the man himself. If you're not a fan of the sport and know nothing of the man, this love letter to Senna won't do much for you because it is essentially an idolization of the figure. Nothing is said to contradict the great nature and admirable spirit of Senna; it's wholly a glorification of him, a condemnation of Balestre and the politics of the FIA, and at best an unfair, but not completely hateful painting of Alain Prost. Personally, I liked the film just fine, but the way it was structured (for fans of the sport) ruined the experience for me where I'm sure the shorter cut made facts less known before each race. For example, discussions about the big incident at the end (I'll refrain from spoilers for those who check this to see which is the version they should watch) arise half an hour before it happens. Before many races, facts about the point system and what each person needs to do to win are brought up; meaning most people can surmise what will happen next. This isn't bad for people watching a film about Senna because they love him, but it lacks suspense for those new to the events.

As for the 106 minute version, what I took from Kermode's review was that there were few (or even no) scenes that cut away from the action at hand to address interviewees. That their input on events and knowledge about the sport played atop scenes. This, of course, would make for a quicker pace which someone like me would have appreciated over the elongated facts accompanied by the faces spouting them. Also, I figure there's less of a perpetuation of how fantastic Senna was off the tar because there's less time to delve into his extracurriculars. And unless the guy is truly as indelible as the cut I saw made him out to be, I'd figure this the better taken route because it is such a one-sided depiction.

So for me, the F1 ignorant, I found Senna to be a bit of a drag because it offered little of what I find in documentaries that interest me. Funnily enough, I found the scenes where Prost spoke to be the most interesting because his intentions weren't always known and his take on the events to be so very of his nature. Sometimes smarmy, sometimes funny and insightful, sometimes cruel and deceptive and sometimes touching. The conflict between he and Senna was the meat of the film for me and the point of its greatest excitement because it had that air of unpredictability and because of how it took excerpts from a Prost interview, gave the whole dynamic a really interesting tilt. Of course learning about Senna was good too. It was intermittently interesting and at times I felt a deep connection for the icon because of how the camera held on his face during a time of doubt or of tragedy. There's something about his countenance that truly does transcend his image and what he did in the sport. But then at other times the film sped through his accomplishments and kept impressing how big of a name he was to the world at large and how much Brazil idolized him, but rarely did it humanly express how he helped Brazil from a Brazilian perspective. The facts about what he did to help Brazil were often stated and it simply got boring and even impersonal.

Anyway, I'll end this post now. If you're looking for an internal conflict about a successful man, Senna isn't for you because only one image is presented and it's near a holy one. If you love the man and want to relive his F1 journey, the long cut is definitely going to be for you. And if you're like me and simply new to everything and know of competitive racing only from the Gran Turismo games, then the theatrical cut will most capture your excitement. Though I will say this one final thing of the 162 minute version - for its entire run time, I never felt bored and rather quite in tune to everything pertaining to the feature; as if I was experiencing each event in real time and when it ended longed for more knowledge. If nothing else, that must say something about how engaging Senna and his time in F1 were.

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