The documentary “Meu Ayrton, by Adriane Galisteu” premiered on HBO Max on November 6th. Divided into two episodes, the series narrates the model and presenter’s relationship with Senna, the Formula 1 legend. Told in a personal way, the documentary recounts his last days from her perspective.
Galisteu’s documentary is, in a way, a belated response to the recent tributes on the 30th anniversary of the pilot’s death. In 2024 two series were released. In “Senna by Ayrton”, a documentary produced by Globoplay, there was an intention to tell the driver’s career from his own point of view. Adriane was filed. In “Senna”, a series released by Netflix, she even appears, but as a completely irrelevant character.
In fact, Galisteu and Senna’s relationship was short-lived. From March 1993, when they met at the Interlagos race, until the driver’s death on May 1, 1994, the relationship lasted less than a year and a half. But the way Adriane was removed from the narrative about the last days of Ayrton’s life opens the way for many to notice the erasure.
In narratives about the pilot’s life, recent times are always presented as years of agony and full of tension. The last time Senna was champion was in 1991. In 1994, there was pressure from all sides. Galisteu experienced all of this up close. And from Senna’s death onwards, his role was expunged once and for all.
At the pilot’s wake, Galisteu was ignored by the family in a bizarre way. Since then, almost all works about Senna have been authorized by his family, led by his sister Viviane Senna.
There are two honorable exceptions that escaped family control. The best biography of Senna is “Ayrton, the revealed hero”, by Ernesto Rodrigues, published in 2004. Detailed and well written, it is a book that did not count on blessings and did not even manage to interview the driver’s family, who refused to collaborate. This allowed the author a healthy distance from the myth, constructing a narrative in which Senna’s private life is not idealized.
Another work that sought to dispute the sanctified image of the pilot is the book “Path of butterflies: my 405 days alongside Ayrton Senna”, published by Galisteu, in November 1994. For those who read this book, there are no major revelations in “Meu Ayrton, by Adriane Galisteu”.
Even without major news, the most important thing about Adriane Galisteu’s documentary is her willingness to dispute the national myth. It’s a work that perhaps wouldn’t even have been released 10 years ago.
Apart from this columnist, no one in the press seems to have celebrated the tenth anniversary of a historic decision by the STF in 2015. Since the beginning of the millennium, several biographers had been prevented from writing, filming and documenting public lives, as their families or those being biographed themselves embargoed works.
The case of author Paulo César de Araújo became famous, whose book “Roberto Carlos in Details” was banned throughout the country at the request of the king in 2007. Araújo still faced demands for compensation and imprisonment. All this without there being even a lie in his book. Simply because Roberto Carlos didn’t like his narrative.
Other authors had problems with the families of their biographers, as was the case with Ruy Castro and the daughters of Garrincha, his biographer in “Estrela Lonely”. This was also the case of author Benjamin Moser, who faced angry family members of Clarice Lispector.
The biographers and their families understood that the lives of public figures should only be told by themselves, or with their authorization. It was very surprising at the time that great MPB artists, such as Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, Milton Nascimento, Gilberto Gil, Djavan and several others united in the self-titled group “Procure Saber” adhered to the idea of censorship defended by Roberto.
The repercussion was enormous and, although almost no one remembers it today, the printed, visual and audio biography market was strangled by fear. Many productions never even got off the ground.
Faced with pressure from society, in 2015 the STF ruled on the matter. And it guaranteed the authors’ right to expression, without prior censorship.
It was a historic victory. Without it, there would not be most of today’s successful productions. Without the guarantee of the 2015 law, Rádio Novelo would not be able to produce its excellent biographical podcasts “Retrato Narrado”, about Bolsonaro, nor “Praia dos Ossos”, about the feminicide of Ângela Diniz.
Nor would there be the series “Ângela Diniz: murdered and condemned”, which debuted this week on HBO Max. Or the great streaming success last month, the series “Tremembé”, which tells the lives of famous inmates in the Brazilian criminal world. Any biography could embargo the series. Even the murderers themselves could do it, in the name of the idea that only they could speak about themselves, penalizing these works of art, even if correct.
Adriane Galisteu built a career of her own brilliance, in addition to her short career with Senna. And he has the courage to compete with the mythical version of the pilot, always with elegance and without showing hurt. A more human Senna appears in his report.
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