Twisting Asphalt - A SoCal Ducati Motorcycle Blog

As some of you know I recently had the chance to watch One Man’s Island , a first person documentary about Canadian Mark Gardiners’ journey to qualify and race in the 2002 Isle of Man TT Motorcycle Race. (Subsequently I reviewed the film, if you’re interested you can read my review of it here if you’re interested). Much of One Man’s Island lives and breaths with Mark and within his struggles. He is after all a privateer racer who gives up everything to travel across the Atlantic to try and qualify for the toughest road race in the world. A single event unlike any other in motorcycle racing.

While I enjoyed One Man’s Island on a certain level, I found myself lusting after more once the credits rolled. When I bought the DVD I was hoping to find a film that held motorcycle racing in the same passionate terms as I do. Tonight I found that film. Standing in direct opposition to Mark & his journey in almost every respect is Faster. A film written and directed by Mark Neale that chronicles the MotoGP circuit during the 2001 and 2002 campaigns.

The difference between these two films is amazing. One Man’s Island is like a sporty bmw, like the R1100S or K1200S, compared to Fasters’ full blown, mind bending, roller coaster of Ducati or MV Agusta sportbike. One film is slow in the corners and faster on the straights while the other is fast in the corners and beyond faster on the back stretch. While One Man’s Island details all of Mark’s adventures, Faster goes miles beyond, following several of the best of the best at the highest level of motorcycle racing; including, current riders Valentino Rossi, Max Biaggi, Garry McCoy, John Hopkins and ex-MotoGP winners such as Mick Doohan, Wayne Rainey, Kenny Roberts, Kevin Schwantz Eddie Lawson and Barry Sheene. There are dozens of others of supporting characters as well, all of which help director Mark Neale paint a wonderfully rich canvas in order to tell the MotoGP story.

What Neale has to say comes and goes at times, but overall plays very well. He starts Faster with what can only be described as the etymology of a motorcycle crash - a very visual backdrop to hook non-riding viewers, but one that I found as a longtime motorcyclist a bit objectionable. I don’t know if he intended it this way, but while watching this section of the film I was constantly thinking that this might offend some riders, but most likely hook many NASCAR fans. But like a bad accident ahead of you on a track, once Faster gets by it, the film really gets going. Around the four-five minute mark the real story starts - the 2001 MotoGP series.

This starts a series of interviews with the laundry list of current and former MotoGP racers and I found all of the interviews extremely candid and very strong. Neale clearly has a knack for getting people to open up to him, even when he’s asking some fairly challenging questions. From this point on the film is just damn entertaining to watch. The photography is flat out excellent and the editing, while not groundbreaking, is very, very compelling in several sections. One of my favorites is when Neale uses the former rivalry between Wayne Rainey and Kevin Schwantz to illustrate the current rivalry between Valentino Rossi and Max Biaggi. The flashback-esque telling of the Rainey and Schwantz story truly hooks you, to the point that it forces you to understand what is going on inside the minds of Rossi and Biaggi. I’ve read plenty of books, including Rainey’s wonderfully written biography, that tell this same basic story but it has never held me nearly as fascinated as what Neale accomplishes within the confines of the current MotoGP world.

The production values of the film are further enhanced by the minimal narration by Ewan McGregor. Obviously Ewan’s a fairly serious motorcycle fan as evidenced by his up coming round the world BMW GS adventure with Charles Boorman (The Long Way Round). Here his passion and well known voice provide a theatrical film feel and serious nature to the backdrop of the film . In many ways this furthers the photography, as I tend to think great sound makes great pictures better, bring truly excellent camera work up to the epic scale. Just like a when you hit a corner and nail it, there are several points when the film just comes together right before you eyes and makes you marvel at what its like to push a motorcycle to the edge.

Perhaps most importantly for a documentary, Faster makes you think about what it means to ride. Throughout the film I couldn’t help but wonder if these amazing athletes are flat out nuts or extremely brave. The film made me think, not only about the skill involved, but my skills as a rider. Who does dream of one day reaching such out of world levels on their bike? At one point in the film Neale interviews a doctor who runs the emergency facilities that travel with the race circuit, who I believe is named Dr Claudio Costa, who remarks that MotoGP racers “are godly figures that one day realize they have to go back and become men once again” or something along those lines. Regardless of whether or I not I got the exact words right, the sentiment is the same and this strikes me as a truism in reverse for the rest of us riders. We all wish somewhere within our psyches that one day, just for 1 lap, we could ride like these men do and it’s a tribute to Neale and his team that by the end of Faster I’m more convinced then ever that the passion, excitement and joy of riding far outweighs the risks.

I have two quibbles with Faster, the first of which is that Neale and his team almost try to tell to large of a story for their own good. They basically introduce four lead characters; World Champion Valentino Rossi, his main rival Max Biaggi, American new comer John Hopkins and often injured Garry McCoy. This foursome in many ways illustrates typical archetypes, the winner, the loser, the rookie and the I could have been. Yet here none of them truly get a chance to punch through and become more than a B story-line. Other than calling the film an overarching look into the MotoGP world, there is no true arch at work. People come and go and sections end and others begin without you sometimes realizing it. During one time during the end of the 2001 race season, Neale uses black and white title cards to tell viewers what is going on and I think he would have been better served to use a thematic device like that through out the film to help distinguish what is going on or will be coming at times. My other minor complaint is that unless you’ve got a finely tuned ear for foreign dialects, some of the europeans are a bit hard to understand at various points. I suspect this has less to do with the mix and more to do with the actual voices involved.

Those two minor issues aside, this is a rock’n roll motorcycle racing show. It’s a joy to watch and just flat out fun. Pure adrenaline pumping excitement on a variety of levels. I strongly suggest that if you have any inkling of interest in motorcycle racing - at any level - you should - no make that need - to get your hands on a copy of the pre-release DVD that is for sale on the Faster website.

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