Racing Films

Lockdown in 2020 forced people into their homes, resulting in long periods spent in solitude thinking of new ideas and projects, often out of sheer boredom.  This spurred a whole wave of creativity, particularly online, people all over the globe contributed little gems of creativity through various internet platforms for us all to enjoy and help get us through some rough times.  The racetracks of the world fell silent and we all started watching e-racing while we tried to figure out how do we get on with normal racing shit without killing people by spreading a deadly virus.

While one of those racetracks, Monaco, was silent Charles LeClerc and Ferrari also tried to contribute to the immense pile of bingeable online content by bringing us, ‘Le Grande Rendezvous’, essentially a modern take on Claude Lelouche’s original ‘C’etait un Rendezvous’. Claude Lelouche himself was called on to direct this modern version.

If you are not familiar with the concept of these films it essentially involves someone driving a sports car through city streets at speeds that could attract enough attention from the local cops to earn you some jail time.  Although unlike the original, I doubt LeClerc was risking any jail time here as it looks like the streets were closed and he was free to run the Monaco circuit as quickly and recklessly as he chose. 

What point would a risky city street race be without a girl worth risking a life of soap on rope for? At the beginning of the film we see a beautiful street florist, adorned with a face mask, serving customers.  The florist, Rebecca, is not your average florist, her full name is Rebecca Blanc-Lelouch granddaughter of Gunilla Friden and director of these films, Charles Lelouch.   She is beautiful, but unfortunately has one of those serious expressions young women get now days from continuously pouting for Insta pics and not actually smiling.

The original Rendezvous was a point to point frantic sprint across Paris, whereas in this one we get a bit of prelude to the drive and then LeClerc does two laps of the Monaco circuit.  The first on his own and then the second with a passenger, his serene highness Albert II de Monaco, who he picks up following some polite applause from the prince’s entourage.  

The real star of the show is the Ferrari SF90 Stradale.  It was released in 2020 to celebrate 90 years of Ferrari as reflected in the name Scuderia Ferrari 90 (SF90).  Only 500 of these incredible Ferraris will be made.  The car is powered by Twin Turbocharged 4.0 v8, but the car is also a plug in hybrid and has three electric motors giving the car a total combined power output of 735kw or 968hp.  Like most plug in sports hybrids the driver can choose between driving modes and this Ferrarri is no different having a full electric, hybrid and performance to choose from.  The SF90 also has a qualify mode which maximises the total power output of the combustion and electric power.   It can achieve 0 – 100 kph in and incredible 2.5 seconds.  The film does give us some sense of the acceleration and speed of this car with camera mounted close to the road surface and some rich engine sounds.

Aside from a sense of speed the film doesn’t even come close to capturing the raw thrill and on the edge driving of the original.  In the original film we get a true sense of extreme risk and danger, after all the roads were open to the public and Lelouch drove like a nutter.  The Ferrari version, although fast, feels very controlled, at no point does it feel like LeClerc or the car are on the edge.  The film also lacks the passion of the original, it is not clear that LeClerc has any sort of passion for Rebecca the florist, or perhaps we were supposed to feel the sparks of passion between Leclerc and the Prince?  Maybe both.  The only sense of any risk we get is when both Rebecca and LeClerc take of their face masks while driving away together, presumably the implication being that they are about to go and copulate in a mutual bubble. 

On the plus side, there is a lot of hat tipping to the original film by the Ferrari version, they have used the original director, cast his grand daughter, the film is shot with similar artistic technique, the sound is rich and a sense of speed is created.  It was also a nice treat for us all while struggling through lockdowns and a lot of real racing was off the cards.  Overall it wouldn’t be fair to be to harsh on the Ferarri version, they are not disguising it as anything other than a car commercial and beautiful vehicles like this are worth showing off, for some light entertainment, to those of us who will probably never own one.

So all in all this is OK, not exciting but OK and to quote an entirely different Prince Albert, “Sometimes in life we have to do things we do not want to do.”

Two and a half Hartley’s.