DECENT BUT NO SENNA OR RUSH

This is an attention-grabbing film that is flawed, but nonetheless worth a watch. Charting the course of safety in Formula 1 from the 1950s through to the mid 1990s it attempts to enter the changing mind-set of a racing driver and detail what it was which changed the sport from one where a driver had a three year life expectancy, to one where they are global sports stars earning millions over careers safely spanning decades.

Given the success of recent Formula 1 films such as Senna and Rush it would be negligent to consider Life on the Limit without reference to them. As such it’s fair to say that it’s less impressive than both, and that it doesn’t provide any deeper analysis of the sport than does existing documentaries which are regularly repeated on obscure satellite channels.

Nevertheless, it’s noteworthy for its editing and even as a lifelong follower of the sport it did provide a significant amount of footage that I had never seen before (something which Senna also achieved).

Further to this it also highlights how remarkable the stories of Senna and Rush were, given how this film charts the whole history of the sport and allows the viewer to see where those stories fitted in and what their wider impacts were.

That said the structure of the film is somewhat confused. After a well edited opening which follows the start of the 1996 Australian Grand Prix and the high profile crash of Martin Brundle, it spends the next 20mins aimlessly wondering through the generalities of the sport before heading back to the early 1960s and beginning its central safety plot.

However, once this transition happens it manages to find its footing and takes the next 70 or so minutes to catch back up to that same 1996 crash. Other than a few minor diversions this proves to be a largely successful attempt at providing a powerful representation of just how much F1 safety improved in the years in-between, and how remarkable it was (given previous accidents) that Brundle was able to make it through that crash completely unhurt.

Thanks to these changes F1 is now a sport where death is significantly less likely, and one in which drivers such as Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa are now surviving crashes which would have doubtlessly killed them only a few decades ago.

But it’s important to point out that the sport is far from complacent about the good run it has had, and that it is still striving to improve safety today. This is not lost in the documentary and it explored at depth in relation to the changing mentality of drivers, the increased commercialism of the sport, and also the fact that the drivers and teams now have a far stronger say about how the sport is run.

Yet, even with such a positive review I am doubtful that Life on the Limit will have anywhere near the wide appeal enjoyed by either Senna or Rush. The fact that it’s still a conventional documentary could prove alienating to many non-fans. But that said I still found myself enjoying documentaries about sports I have no interest in previously, so I would still recommend people give this one a try.

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