C'etait un Rendez vous

This film had me entranced for the full 8 minutes. Nothing I've seen lately has had me sitting this far forward in my seat. I think it's the uncut nature and that the director actually did this for the film which makes it more real.

Director Claude Lelouch mounts a camera to the front bumper of a sports car, and films it howling through the streets of Paris very early one summer's morning.

For years rumours circulated that the car used was Lelouch's own Ferrari 275GTB, one of the most stunning cars of all time and the driver a Formula 1 star of the time. The film, just nine minutes long, certainly demonstrates his exemplary car control at speeds calculated to be as high as 135mph as he races for his rendezvous with a mystery blonde.

Lelouch, who was arrested after the release of the film, has claimed it was in fact a Mercedes 450SEL with a monstrous 6.9-litre V8 engine, which was then overdubbed with the noise from the Ferrari and that Lelouch himself did the driving.

Whatever the truth, it is an astonishing sequence, filmed in one take as the driver runs red lights, mounts kerbs, drifts round tight corners, and narrowly avoids pedestrians and will certainly have you on the edge of your seat, if not hiding behind it.

Film belongs to spiritlevelfilm.com

via Design Observer