Bicycle Film Festival 2008

I came, I saw, I...was sometimes entertained, sometimes puzzled. Maybe there aren't that many cycling films out there, maybe there isn't that much separating film from Youtube these days.

I went to two screenings on Saturday, the 5pm and 9pm. 5pm session first: three films, two shorts and a long. The two shorts sounded promising as they were intended to be tributes to Pantani and Coppi, but...well, the filmmakers may have considered themselves seriously, but the Pantani film was little more than messed-up footage from the 1994 Tour de France, while the audience could only laugh--out loud--at the pretentious abstraction of the Coppi film (corpa...nervo...ossa...corpa...nervo...ossa...corpa!...nervo!...ossa!...)(sigh...) and hope for it to end quickly (not quickly enough).

The long film was "Les ninjas de Japon", which cuts between following five road racers from Japan and following the 2006 Tour de Burkina Faso in West Africa. It's an interesting juxtaposition of scenes in a highly developed country and in a badly underdeveloped country, neither of which resembles the USA or Canada at all. Well worth seeing if you have a chance, in my opinion, even if you're not a cyclist.

Then, the 9pm screening, whose program was clearly aimed at the urban fixed gear scene. Thorough reviewing was already done by Beth, so I'll stick with a few observations:

(a) While film of fixie riders pedaling at high cadence may be impressive to the cognosceti, to most of us it just looks like a guy pedaling fast--which is NOT THRILLING in itself, regardless of your choice of music.

(b) Lucas Brunelle is to messenger biking what Warren Miller is to skiing, but it's a lot harder for Average Joe to go heli-skiing. Heaven knows how many idiots will be encouraged to skid through red lights by LB's work. At the same time, I admit to the visceral thrill of watching a rider make an awful decision and almost get smeared (literally) by a bus.

(c) The obvious crowd favorite was a 10-12 minute film featuring fixed gear riders on the streets of San Francisco, "Macaframa". There was much of the above-mentioned guys pedaling fast, ho-hum. Regardless of how not-interesting the cycling was inherently, the cinematography--great panning, tracking, deep focus, a little slo-mo--was really, really good. Darn good. Those kind of shots could make riding Muni seem sorta cool, while in this case some guys on bikes were sorta there.

In terms of things that I think you, my faithful reader, could spare some change to go see, stick with "Les ninjas de Japon", though it's unlikely to visit a nearby theater anytime soon. The rest was ignorable. If the filmmakers are reading (ha!), two words, even for a 3-minute film: character development. Make me give a damn, please. "Belle Epoche" managed it in 3, why can't you?