anthony galvin

The Bicycle Film Festival rolled into London last week, and with it Road to Roubaix, a documentary about the Paris-Roubaix cycle race. From a film making perspective this is fertile ground, most notably the subject of arguably the greatest cycling film “A Sunday in Hell” directed by Jorgen Leth.

Where Leth focused on the battle between Eddie Merckx and Roger De Vlaeminck, directors David Deal and Dave Cooper take the battle between terrain and rider as their inspiration. The film is beautifully photographed, lingering shots of the treacherous cobbles are interspersed with rider interviews, some excellent photography and television footage of the 2007 race.

The access to some of the big names on the current cycling circuit is impressive, even Lance Armstrong pops up - however, some of the editting decisions seem awkward, and the battle to entwine the progress of the 2007 race into the story is sometimes a little heavy handed. It feels a little stretched at 86 minutes and might have been better nearer the hour mark.

Overall though it’s a cracking insight into the ‘Queen of the Classics’ and pro-cycling. If it wheels itself your way as part of the BFF world tour, then it’s definitely worth watching.

Autumn. Crisp mornings, longer evenings, golden trees and films. Over the next few weeks there’s a run of festival films that I’m looking forward to:

Road to Roubaix @ 8th Bicycle Film Festival
David Deal and David Cooper revisit the ‘Hell of the North’ 20 years after Jorgen Leth’s stunning film ’A Sunday in Hell’.

Better Things @ LFF
Debut feature from British director Duane Hopkins.

Louise-Michel @ LFF
A new feature by French anarcho-surrealist directors de Ververn and Delepine.

The Trespasser @ LFF
Gloria Swanson’s first talking feature from 1929.

Reviews to follow.

Usually practitioners get better with age (writers, conductors, visual artists, directors etc..). However the shelf life of sportsmen and pop culture musicians (to take the Adorno definition) seems to be relatively short, with a very narrow ‘sweet spot’. They are in many ways the pursuits of 'young people’.

Perhaps this is why a certain type of person (usually men) obsess over sport and (usually obscure) music. It’s a way of holding on to (and in many ways enhancing) a lost adolescence.