Rob Harris, Screen Editor looks back at one of the hidden gems of the LFF: a factual little brother to the blockbusting Rush.
Rush may have been and gone, but this year’s BFI London Film Festival certainly had something to whet the appetites of Formula 1 fans and Chris Hemsworth aficionados alike.
Tucked away in a sparsely occupied cinema screen, Paul Crowder’s 1 has done more than enough to show that documentaries can be just as thrilling as their big-budget Hollywood counterparts.
Following the sport since tyres first touched-ground at Silverstone back in 1950, the film looks back on the evolution of F1 as the cars became faster, the drivers more eccentric, and the fans louder.
However, as the 60s and 70s hit, it soon turned out that despite its explosive popularity, it was a career choice defined by the archaic ways of a post-war world yet to fully comprehend the dangers of racing.
From Jochen Rindt to the Ayrton Senna, the electrifying personalities of the drivers who lit up the tracks and papers of the time are expressed in a captivatingly detailed manner, filling the viewer in on every detail of their lives on and off the circuit.
Rare archival footage combined with interviews with an impressive range of legends and innovators centres the film well and truly on Formula 1 not only as entertainment, but as a thriving culture.
However, as every segment probes deeper into what makes these racers tick, it is nearly always derailed by the abrupt death of each man on screen. The immediacy of these instances, whilst done perhaps too regularly, succeed in juxtaposing the insane, adrenaline-fuelled highs ofdexterity and victory with story after story of these very public, yet crushingly personal tragedies.
Whilst it may alienate some as it gets more bogged down in the details of improving safety and infrastructure, for the most part, 1 is a fantastically realised documentary with an obvious passion for the sport.
It may not reach the lofty heights of Senna, but for anyone with at least a passing interest in Formula 1, this is definitely a film worth giving up two hours for.
Rob Harris, Screen Editor
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