Aabhas Sharma reviews two sports movies that celebrate the never-say-die spirit.
There’s a scene in Asif Kapadia’s biopic on Brazilian F1 driver Ayrton Senna where Senna says: “There’s much to do, much to learn and I have plenty of time.” The scene leaves a lump in your throat because you know what’s coming next. Senna is a compelling tale of triumph and tragedy where you have a fair idea about what’s going to happen, yet it leaves you enthralled.
Kapadia’s biopic works as he has taken unseen footage from the F1 archives and the Senna family and woven a gripping tale. No talking heads, no actors, no special effects, just a plain and simple story about a sporting legend. Senna is considered one of the best — if not the best — drivers ever to have sat in an F1 car. Senna died on the track when his car crashed on May 1, 1994 at Imola in Italy. The fatal weekend of his life is covered in-depth by Kapadia, yet the movie is not about the tragedy.
The best scenes in the movie are the race footage and the many interviews with Senna at various stages of his career. Senna comes across as a brutally honest character while describing his feelings about the internal politics of F1. The rivalry between him and Alain Prost is another highlight of the film. To his credit, Kapadia manages to show how different the world of F1 was in the Senna-Prost era. As we approach Senna’s unfortunate death, Kapadia manages to capture the edginess among drivers about the safety concerns in the sport perfectly. Incidentally, after Senna, there have been no more fatal accidents in F1 racing.
Supported by an excellent soundtrack, Senna is a must-watch for sports fans as well as those who aren’t interested in motorsports. The scene where Prost — a bitter, bitter rival of Senna — is shown holding Senna’s helmet after the crash is truly moving as are the scenes of Senna’s funeral where thousands of Brazilians lined up in the street to pay their last tribute to the sporting hero. Kapadia tells the story of a genius and a sporting icon the way it should have been told.
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If Senna’s story is well-known to many people, the air disaster which killed most of the young Manchester United team of the 1950s is limited to football fans. On February 6, 1958, the aircraft carrying the entire Manchester United team crashed at the Munich airport because of bad weather and killed 23 people, eight of whom were real stars of English football at that time. Matt Busby, the manager of the club, (the team was popularly called “Busby Babes”) was grievously injured in the crash. Still, Busby rose to greatness when he led the club to a European Cup victory ten years later after the tragedy.
Produced by BBC, United, however is not about Busby or for that matter how Manchester United rose from the ashes to become one of the greatest clubs in the world. It’s about the lesser known assistant of Busby, Jimmy Muprhy, played by David Tennant, in a fantastic performance, and how the club stood on its feet after the tragedy. The scene where Murphy hears for the first time about the crash is one of the best in the movie. He is standing alone near the players’ tunnel and slumps down on the stairs. The other scene which strikes an emotional chord is when the coffins of the players are brought back to the gym in Old Trafford, Manchester United’s stadium. Murphy is sitting in a gym with his club staff and one by one the coffins are brought in for them to say the final goodbyes.
While Murphy is the hero of United, a special mention must be given to Jack O’Connell who plays Bobby Charlton. Charlton was one of the survivors of the crash and recovered to give more than a decade of service to the club. Charlton went on to become the European Player of the Year in 1968 and now serves as an ambassador for the club. For him, to overcame grief and emotion of losing some of his friends and still become one of the top players in the world is a fantastic story in itself and O’Connell does justice to the role .
Yet, there are quite a few inaccuracies in the movie. Like, in one scene, just before the first match the club played after the tragedy, Mark Jones, a young player at Manchester United, is shown puffing on a pipe which is a strict no right before the game. The other criticism levelled at the film is how some of the players like Roger Byrne and Tommy Taylor who died in the crash have been completely sidelined.
These flaws aside, United is a great account of events which changed the destiny of a club and rightly focuses on one of the unsung heroes of Manchester United. A lot of credit must be given to Tennant for bringing across the character of Murphy in a wonderful manner. In a particular scene, Murphy explains his simple philosophy about football: “You win the ball, you pass the ball and you score a goal.” (Not dissimilar to Virender Sehwag’s advice to a New Zealand batsman: “See ball, hit ball.”) At the end of the movie, you are left wondering what would have been the fate of a club of Manchester United’s magnitude had their assistant manager Murphy not held the club together in the face of tragedy.