C'ETAIT UN RENDEZVOUS (1976) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Claude Lelouch
A head-spinning, jaw-dropping, heart-pounding thrill ride, a nine-minute race at dawn through Paris, and for years a subject of mystery and speculation. To make it, Claude Lelouch mounted a camera on the front of a car, which somebody then drove way too fast through the City of Light. It was long thought that the car was a Ferrari with an unnamed Formula 1 driver behind the wheel. Long after he made the movie, Lelouch admitted that the car was really a Mercedes and he was the one driving it. However it was done, it's a lightning-fast tour of the city, shot in one continuous take with no digital effects or tinkering with the film speed: The car really is going that fast. The conclusion is perfect (and peculiarly French), and miraculously, nobody got killed along the way.
