A Life of Speed: The Juan Manuel Fangio Story

I want engine noise! All I got was a wall of pointless background music, drowning out both voice and noise. Could not stand to keep watching (hearing) that.

This is a technically competently made doc on the life of Juan Manuel Fangio, one of the greatest drivers of all time. It is nice to have some of Formula 1's greatest legends talk about one of their idols and the impact he had on their lives. It is pretty informative on the F1 side but it lacks on the more personal side. His life had a lot of incredible situations (he was kidnapped by Cubans for Chrissake!) that are barely mentioned and I think there should have been a lot more emphasis on the Ascari death, which isn't even mentioned! So all in all it's a decent doc that feels a bit incomplete.

I follow modern F1, but I'll admit my history is patchy. I know Juan Manuel Fangio of course, one of the very best... if not the best, but there's opportunity to learn much more. However, the bar is set high for documentaries these days and this doesn't really reach that bar. It's quite formulaic, pretty dry, certainly in the opening half hour which is a dull history lesson through Fangio's initiation into motor racing. Granted I learn he started at a surprisingly late age by today's standards, being 37 when he first raced in Europe. It was a different time in motor sport, near impossible to compare today's drivers to those from Fangio's era and the pacing of A Life of Speed grinds to a halt as this topic is covered. Today it's marginal gains, fast reaction speed, different tracks, radically different cars. There was no desire for comfort in the 50s and little thought to safety. I only mention this as it sadly seems to be the key point of the film. There's lots of familiar faces, Stewart, Prost, Häkkien, Rosberg, Alonso, Wolff, coupled with plenty of archive footage, but it feels as much a history of F1 and motor racing as Fangio himself and nothing particularly new. Senna's death, the horrific crash at Le Mans and some archive audio dubbing that sounds slightly suspect. Much is made of Fangio's achievements, winning 5 championships with 4 different constructors, but this feels bolted on and really should have been the central theme. For me that's where this suffers, structurally it's very loose, well intentioned, but lacking pace and a good story arc. Frankly I think Fangio deserves better.

4/10

I read Fangio - his autobiography - about 40 years ago and remember seeing him at races and being interviewed and it is difficult to express quite how iconic a figure he was in life as well as in racing history. This film does address that in it's interviews with drivers like Stewart and Prost, but somehow it's coverage of his racing career is bland. Archive footage of 1950's motor sport is somewhat limited, but dressing it up by dubbing on a retro-style commentary didn't work for me and I also found it distracting that not all the clips match the races being described in the commentary. Aspects of his career that were massively significant - his crash at Monza in 1952, the 1957 German Grand Prix and his kidnapping in1958 are covered - although the kidnapping is barely touched upon - but somehow the sum is less than the parts. This guy was an absolute legend, but somehow they've reduced him to a collection of facts.

I mean, I feel ya bud but... come on, is that really 1 worthy?