Retro Pedalling

How to explain the passion for cycling, this desire for freedom, this need to go out regardless of the weather, to always extend the end of one’s road?

“I Bike” by Martin Amiot and Philippe Bellemare (Canada, Québec – 2013)

“It could be summed up in just three or four words: to delay the moment of sunset. Must we explain, justify, get lost in words in a field where only action matters? To delay the moment of sunset. That’s enough. Legs rotate on the earth that itself rotates, it is life that pushes back its own limits. It expands its borders. Time lost rolling in the wind, in the rain, or against the clock, is actually time reclaimed. It can be used later, on gray days filled with memories, even better if they are happy ones. Even if they aren’t, at least they are full of adventure”.

This text borrowed from the writer Eric Fottorino, captures the spirit of this retrospective. Three programs will show that biking is good for the body, the mind, and also the planet. Twenty-four films where athletes, bike lovers, and daily riders share the spotlight on the asphalt.

“60 cycles” by Jean-Claude Labrecque (Canada – 1964)
© National Film Board of Canada. All rights reserved. 

Of course, there will be bike racers taking mythic and epic rides in breathtaking scenery. 60 Cycles, from Quebec, immerses audiences in the pack of bicycles of the 1965 Tour of Saint-Laurent bicycle race. This first film by Jean-Claude Labrecque is filled with visual research: “I knew very little about cycling, I took on the project in order to make a carnal film… shot it enraged, edited it enraged, and mixed it enraged.” It’s a film to discover in tandem with Vive le Tour by Louis Malle, a documentary about the 1962 Tour de France. It gets intimate with spectators, journalists, and the cyclists themselves, worn out from the heat, chasing drinks… Also competitive, but with humor, is the animated Panique au village, where a cowboy and Indian attempt to rob Monsieur Eddy (Merckx, of course). And then there’s the London Bike Club training session that is shot in a fragmented Labo style in Going Nowhere Fast. Despite the icy weather that evening, the temperature inside keeps heating up. And let’s not forget the original biking film, by the Lumière brothers…

For the adventurous, there’s 30 Century Man: music by Mogwai and a shining portrait of James Bowthorpe on his trip around the world. The film was made by Antony Crook on a day without end on the roads of Norway.

“Paris Shangai” by Thomas Cailley (France – 2010)
© Ivan Mathie

There’s also Paris Shanghai by National Jury Member Thomas Cailley (director of Les Combattants, in cinemas last summer) where, to find one’s life purpose, a bike trip is undertaken, from Paris to… China … with more than one surprise! We’ll also enjoy Les Yeux fermés, an animation documentary by Jeanne Paturle. From her home in Paris, she imagines the travels of her friends who went tandem biking in Africa with blind people. Her film is based on the audio recordings they sent back to her.

But for bikers, adventure could even be on the corner of one’s own street. On the sidewalks of New York, A Bike Ride becomes an opportunity for a father-daughter chat about the ups and downs of life. In Japan, with Jitensha, a man realizes that he is progressively rebuilding his own life as he finds, piece by piece, his stolen bike.

“Father and Daughter” by Michael Dudok de Wit (Netherlands – 2000)

But let us not forget the daily pedalers – like Tati’s postman. The driver of a bike taxi who, in Three-Legged Horses, begins an improbable uphill climb to Edinburgh Castle. Or the supernatural bike pack that haunts Paris streets, riding to the rhythms of Gesaffelstein (Ghostriders II). The girl who looks for her dad in the Oscar winning Father and Daugther. And the biking community of Montreal, who in I Bike, are convinced that they can radically change a city: “Commute to work by bike for a month, see how much money you saved, in how much better shape you are in, and see how you are often the only person smiling in the morning on the elevator. It’s because you just got a breath of fresh air rather than spending an hour in a traffic jam!”

Do you need to stretch your limits, to blow off steam, to share a magic moment, or just get some fresh air?

Then saddle up for 3 programs of cycle therapy!