C'était un rendez-vous

On second and subsequent viewings Lelouch's famous blast through Paris throws up more questions than even the reviewers here have come up with. It's obvious by the time taken to reach landmarks that the camera vehicle never exceeds the magic 100mph. Having experienced a similar drive through the streets of Sydney back in the 1960s (in a then just released Mini Cooper S) I know how fast one seems to be traveling when close to road level.

The speed or lack of it isn't the point of the film, though. It's the combination of Paris circa 1976 and the masterful soundtrack which to my way of thinking wasn't dubbed as some would have you believe. The exhaust note and a few missed gear changes seem to indicate that all is on the up and up; the Ferrari has such a torquey engine that it would have been possible to carry out the drive in top gear. Only in a few spots does the engine really rev high and it's always in the lower gears.

Rather than look for faults, better to just sit back and be treated to the best 9 minutes combination of sight and sound you may ever experience.

What I'd like to know, though, are there other films of this nature around?

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.

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.

Forget Bullitt The French Connection etc. Believe the hype! Knowing this is for real makes it gripping, no dialogue, 2 actors, on screen for 5 seconds. 10 minutes of pure high Octane exitement in a classic Ferrari on the streets of 1970's Paris. Excellent