La Course en Tete

1974 cycling documentary

Rating: 13/20 (Mark: 15/20)

Plot: A look at Belgium cycling superstar Eddy Merckx as he trains and races and juggles a family life.

Best thing about this one: I get to use my "bagpipes" label. A bagpipe-heavy score, by the way, never really made sense to me. I was tricked into watching this by my brother who translated La Course en Tete as "The Way of the Tits" and told me it was "boob kung-fu" which, as a warm-blooded American male, I was excited about. And then this didn't have kung-fu or boobs, just a bunch of cycling. And I mean lots of cycling. For the cycling enthusiast, this might make a lot of sense on its own. I had to have a lot explained to me by a cycling enthusiast, almost as much I need comic book movies explained to me by comic book enthusiasts. I also had problems with the chronology of this, and I suspect that it was all sort of random. There was a lot of exciting cycling action, but after a while, enough was enough. Once this hit the four hour mark, I had hit my limit. I did come away with a respect for Eddy Merckx though which I suppose was the point. My favorite bits: an opening montage of a bunch of old-timey bicycle footage and a later montage of a lot of horrendous accidents. One of those probably was accompanied by inexplicable bagpipe music.