C'était un rendez-vous

Hmmm.....I won the DVD of this movie - and I was totally unimpressed. Less than 9 minutes long? No cast? (Actually, there are a couple, but more on that later), no effects? No script? Come on, what were they trying to pull???!?!?!

And then I watched it.

Car lovers, you HAVE to see this movie. A break-neck drive through a 1976 Paris dawn in what must have been one of the fastest cars around at the time. All sorts of rumours surround this film - was the driver of the car a hired Formula 1 Driver? - having seen it, this would not surprise me.........was the director immediately arrested following it's first showing? Again, this would not surprise me.

No script, No effects, No editing - yep, it was all done in one take, and the DVD supposes a reason for this - and only the briefest appearance by "Actors" for the surprise ending.......and it is a surprise - not for nothing does this movie have this title...

Watch it if you get a chance, but not before securely fastening your seatbelt!!!!!!!!!! The kind of movie that Cine2000 and IMax were invented for.....

This is perhaps not a film that I would recommend paying good money for; especially when you consider that A) it's only nine minutes in length and B) can be watched for free on various video upload sites around the net. However, as a piece of cinema, the experience is exhilarating. If you took the time to search this film by name, then I'd imagine you're already familiar with the concept; which involves a car speeding dangerously through the streets of early morning Paris on the way to an unknown destination. Director Claude Lelouch originally claimed that the film featured a Ferrari 275 GTB speeding through streets at 140-odd miles per hour, which is a brave feat, but one that has been proved as false over the subsequent years.

However, the fact that Lelouch was not driving the Ferrari and was in actual fact creating the facade of such an extravagance in his own Mercedes estate makes this even more successful as an experiment into the falseness of cinema itself. Through the use of sound and movement, Lelouch creates the facade of intense speed and real danger, as we view the action from a low angle camera attached to the car's front bumper as it twists and turns through narrow side roads and along busy streets, taking in the architecture and some of the major tourist traps on this breakneck journey through time. Naturally you can project your own opinions and interpretations onto it, seeing it as a metaphor for existence, of time moving forward to an event so fast that you cannot even comprehend how dangerous the journey actual is, etc, but for me, I feel this film is Lelouch's way of taking the ideas of someone like Godard to heart to show the natural facade of cinema itself.

The idea that the single components or the "how's and why's" aren't necessarily as important as the finished whole or the experience that they present seems to be the real point of the film. There's also the typically adventurous idea of cinema for the sake of cinema; recalling the ideas of someone like Werner Herzog, in the sense that there is no reason for doing anything other than the reason itself. C'était un rendez-vous (1976) is maverick film-making that represents the true heart and soul of cinema in the classic sense of the brother Lumiere, and of short films like The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896).

The most famous motoring footage of all time, or more perhaps infamous. A breathtakingly insane sprint across Paris in a Ferrari. Claude Lelouch has gone for the minimalist approach in the documentation of 'the bet' as legend puts it. No dialogue, no plot, just the sights and sounds of a headlight's eye view of Paris early in the morning as Lelouch tries desperately to traverse the Paris CBD in under 8 minutes. The boy racer in everyone will enjoy the enthralling ride - equal to any racecam footage modern motorsport provides - the roar of a 60's Ferrari - to the enthusiast a sound now made mechanically impossible by noise regulations. While Lelouch desperate flinging of the car through Paris is a joy, half the fun is the reactions of pedestrians, animals and other vehicles as Lelouch thunders through.

Seeing this film is like being catapulted into an IMAX version of a Peter Stuyvesant commercial, back to the days when men smoked and didn't wear underarm deodorant, cars had engine notes, clutches required leg muscles and women enjoyed being flirted with at the office (...and, yes, they actually did!). Rendezvous is a high-adrenaline, condensed style statement with an ending that could have only come from the maker of 'A Man and A Woman'. Underscoring it all is the sexiest soundtrack of all time (John Barry and Shirley Bassey notwithstanding), 12 cylinders and 4 litres of the Ferrari 365 Boxer driven by Lalouch's friend, racing driver Jacky Ickx. I love this film and the era it represents, particularly as I live in one of the most over-regulated, purse-lipped and 'responsible' societies in the world. For anyone that has ever owned, driven or just loved classic Italian sportscars, (and enjoyed raising a little bit of hell), Rendezvous is a must see. I can just imagine our hydrogen-car driving grandchildren shaking their heads in befuddlement as they tuck into their tofu and spring water. I'll be there to explain to them that if you don't smoke, drink, fornicate and drive sexy cars that they actually mightn't live longer...but it sure as hell will feel longer.

I just saw the Ralph Lauren car exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In the gift shop they had this movie on a loop. I'm ashamed to say I paid close to thirty dollars for a 9 minute DVD but that's a testament to how amazing this film is. Who cares if the car doesn't get into all 5 gears or that it isn't going as fast as it seems. It's still an amazing piece of film footage. Once you see it you'll know where they got some of the inspiration for the video games GTA and Midnight Club. I swear I've seen imitations of some of the footage in those games. This film should have been one of the ones mentioned at the beginning of 'The Player' where the security guy is talking about long single takes in movies during the long opening shot. I'm going to go watch it again.

I'd like to add, now that I've seen Ronin I know where Frankenheimer got some of his inspiration.