C'était un rendez-vous

In the opening credits, it says the movie without speeding up or "trucage" which is best translated as manipulation.

However, internet research reveals, the movie was shot with a fixed automatic camera on the bumper of a heavy but very fast Mercedes S-class (the hard ride of a genuine sports car would have ruined the equipment).

So as a matter of fact, the legend about Ferrari plus racing driver, the engine noise and the gear change sounds are all fake - and pretty much "trucage", indeed.

Nevertheless, the drive is hilarious to watch. Until recently, there was a synchronized show of the movie and a drawing of the route on a map on the Internet - unfortunately, this didn't work the last times I tried to watch.

It's a typical take by Lelouch: the magic of cinema, surprises in the end, a "how they do this with a camera?"... If you have seen the Lelouch's short for "Lumiere & Co." it's the same thing always, it's a magician of nothing, but all that "nothing" is "brillant" in the way that he show it on the screen. A lot of thing, maybe it's not good at all, but we can't stop to see this movie, it's amazing, we are part of all the movie like in a "camera car" or "camera moto" (for me it's a moto) of Formula 1... I would like so much to see this short in a big screen, projected...

I think it's pure cinema.

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.

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).

According to rumor, it's the famous racecar driver Jaques Lafitte who drives this car as it speeds insanely through the near empty streets of Paris at 200km/h one early morning. Veering for cars and buses, almost hitting pedestrians and pigeons on every corner, this is as close to a real snuff movie you'll ever get. Very little is known about the car and it's driver. But I can assure you this: It was in no way sanctioned or produced with the cooperation of the police. It's far too risky for that. But what a ride! An absolute must see for any film or racing fan. Brilliant!