Passion and Art vs Corporatism and Bureaucracy.

Rating: 10/10 (2 May 2020)

The immersion of this movie in the racing scenes was stunning, incredible, extraordinary. I sensed Ken Mile's (Christian Bale) desire to obliterate all records and set himself as a Legend in Le Mans. Rarely do movies submerge me into a state of mind that gives me psychosomatic experiences. Those races are large portion of the movie and just like for the pilots we feel their relativity vicariously. The movie is a concerning two hours and thirty minutes, but in no point, in the entire movie, does it get dull, boring, redundant. We get a story-telling that is passionate, nuanced, idiosyncratic, and moralistic. Kudos to James Mangold.
A beautiful highlight of the movie was the shots at the Le Mans. The viewer gets a sense of what Ken Miles is experiencing. We also understand a modicum of both the intuition and knowledge of the pilot as he is attempting to measure and calibrate the reaction times and distances. His son Peter Miles (Noah Jupe) and Mollie Miles (Caitriona Balfe) were an important inclusion in many of those scenes to remind us that despite his relentless desire for success, he was still a multi-dimensional character with decency and compassion, despite his crazy antics.
The plot follows a perfect pace to provide us with the necessary details to understand the contention between Ford and Ferrari but also make it short enough to not lose our attention with too many character building or dialogue. We immediately recognize the temperament, character, values, and ambition of both Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and Ken Miles as they attempt to circumvent bureaucracy, corporatism, greed, and mediocrity. I would have enjoyed more emotion from both protagonists, but the tone that was set was maybe emulating the real life story of both, even in their character and personality.
The movie reaches a resolution that can leave a bittersweet sensation to many, but the process to reach the moral of the story, many of the times can be more turbulent than expected, sometimes is far more complicated than visualized; there were definitely a lot of factors at play in the unfolding. It is refreshing to see that the protagonist, who was undoubtedly, could even be said obsessed with success, ultimately did not care for the plaudits and trophies of Le Mans. One can say that the process of becoming better was the alluring feature in his experience of racing cars.