[LM24 Race] Journey to Le Mans

[J Jay]

Or later on if you don't have a TV and rely on catch-up streaming services!

The BD just dropped through my letterbox. I'll watch the TV edit first - perhaps it was subconsciously or in part "made for TV" despite the RLM interviews at the premiere.

[J Jay]

Right, that's the TV edit watched. Now for the horribly butchered analogy - if Truth in 24 is a factory LMP1, Journey To Le Mans is an LMP2 with a "true" gentleman as the 3rd driver. All of the passion, half of the execution. a fraction of the resources yes, but a better job could have been done with what was available.

The commentary overall isn't great - neither Stewart or Needell manage to set the right tone, let alone both of them together. The sudden switch to Needell's commentary during the race is especially jarring. The narrative doesn't become much harder to follow when it's switching between Stewart, Needell and Hindhaugh but each time it happened it felt unnecessary. As did the soundtrack, it was a little bit too blockbuster/obviously mood-setting for my liking - as if the director is afraid that the footage won't be captivating or explanatory enough.

Speaking of which, I did notice the fuzzy edges on the camera shots, but I was watching on my monitor, perhaps this would be less of an issue on a TV. Even though there were a few too many internet-compilation-worthy offs in the first few minutes, overall the footage used for the programme was good enough considering the lack of resources available. I still would have liked more of it though, especially during the race; a lot of time was spent looking at the pit crew while listening to the car's progress out on track.

The TV edit was split roughly 50/50 between the lead-up and the race week itself. There should have been more time spent on the race, and precious little context was given for the role of the Jota team, who its competitors were, why it dropped back, how it got into the lead, why Turvey was drafted in, etc. Without wanting to sound too harsh, it was akin to Match Of The Day highlights that cherry-pick the moments to support the surface-level punditry that follows. Now every documentary is guilty of this, but in JTLM it was very obvious that this was going to be the heroic story of Jota's triumph.

With that in mind I liked the first half of the programme much more, with more time spent on the team, how they came together and the preparation for the big race. The passion for the sport comes through here from all involved (maybe except for Gene, but as an old hand he is excused). Nobody comes across as anything less than professional and eager. The shortage of race footage isn't as much of a problem when the races involved are meant to be viewed as stepping stones rather than the destination. In particular great care is taken to show how the whole team dealt with the Silverstone accident, so even though the focus is obviously on Dolan you get a good idea of how everyone else pitched in.

Despite my rambling, I will look forward to watching it again on BD.

[GT6]

watched it and enjoyed it

[Deleted]

Just checked out... it was kinda weird as on the other hand it had more professional general outlook than the other similar privateer LMP documentaries of the past few years (like 'Battle of la Sarthe' from Strakka and the one Greaves had few years ago) and the producers had eye for artistic shots. But then at the same time lot of it was very messy, incoherent mess where they didn't seem to know what to show and what not. Time wasted on unecessary fillers and then important bits left unexplained or completely out. The confusing narration with Hindy and Captain Picard and Needell switching turns didn't help either.

6/10

"Road to Le Mans" from Creation Autosportif, that's the way to do it with mediocre budget. Every time watch it I feel intrigued to find out what happens next even though the outcome is obvious.