When considering the greatest F1 driver of all time, there are names that immediately spring to mind like Juan Manuel Fangio, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, and Lewis Hamilton. Of those, Senna is arguably the most evocative, but Schumacher is in a different category.
This new documentary, which looks at his life and career, is the first really substantive comment publicly from the family since his skiing accident in 2013, as they have been understandably and intensely private. The team of Hanns-Bruno Kammertöns, Vanessa Nöcker, and Michael Wech, with help from the family, take on the story using a mixture of archive footage and new interviews.
As well as archive interviews with Michael himself, there are key contributions from Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Flavin Briatore, Damon Hill, Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard, Bernie Ecclestone, Sebastian Vettel, Willi Weber, Sabine Kehm, Eddie Irvine, and Mark Webber. From the family, we hear from his father Rolf, his brother Ralf, his wife Corinna, and his children Mick and Gina -Maria. It’s a pretty impressive list and they all have interesting things to say about both the man as a driver and as a person.
Like most documentaries it follows a familiar pattern, after a brief period focusing on his initial period in F1. Well covered by home movies, his karting period in the 1980s is intriguing, with lots of rare footage of Michael working with his father and driving on the family-owned track in Kerpen. It’s here we get to see his first encounters with Mika Hakkinen, as they battle on track , mirroring the late 90s races to come.
The most interesting perspective comes from Corinna, as it has extremely rare for her to speak publicly about Michael or their lives. While many were aware of her and you would occasionally hear the odd mention, there has never been anything like this kind of engagement before. Through her we learn a significant amount about their struggles with maintaining privacy, Michael’s approach to racing, and what he was truly like off-track. This is supported by some loving comments from Mick and Gina-Maria, which are particularly interesting as I can’t remember ever seeing Gina-Maria interviewed before.
The main chunk of his F1 career is handled how you would expect, albeit covering the Benetton and Ferrari years slightly differently. In some regards the more interesting of the two is the Benetton period, while the latter years seem to not have as much insight into what was happening behind the scenes.
This slight gap is similarly felt in the range of contributors, as there are some notable omissions. It would have been great to have Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, for instance, talking about both racing against him and his legacy. More behind the scenes from Martin Brundle, Rubens Barrichello, Luca Badoer, and Nico Rosberg would also have added greatly, having worked with him at key moments.
Understandably, there isn’t much detail given during the final section of Schumacher, as the family discuss his condition now. Their openness is remarkable though and you do get an endearing picture of a tight knit, caring family. Showing the two sides of Michael through them is one of the strengths of this documentary and not something that has always been the case. For that alone it is an interesting film, and its greatest strength. along with delivering a fascinating view of his early years. While there are gaps and many sections that needed to be covered in more depth, for a running time of 1hr 52m it does quite well, and cements the legend of this enigmatic character.