A Sunday in Hell

The "Hell of the North", the infamous annual bike race from Paris to Roubaix, is an epic sporting contest; and Joergen Leth, a film-maker with a long-term love of professional cycling. Yet Leth's 1976 film of the race is a documentary that seems quaint with age. In a world where sporting events are everywhere on television, there's no-where Leth's film takes us we can't see everyday live on our screens; and the quaint English commentary dissipates the tension of a sporting event through it's use of a tone that is one part anthropology, one part an episode of 'The Clangers'. It's also surprisingly light on relevant sporting detail: the challenge of the great Belgian, Eddy Merkkx, is described without any reference to the fact that this was the tail end of his great career, when his powers were in decline and he was in fact never again to win a big race. When made, this might have been revolutionary; as it is, it pales besides the live action you can see alongside side it.

It has all the necessary elements to be a good documentary. All but the sound mixing. Which is not that bad but the transition and mixing is sometimes....just annoying. During this documentary we see from a helicopter view the riders as they pass along the crowd with some Gregorian type of chanting in the background...no cycling noises no cars no nothing besides some slumber kind of classical music...Guess that's the 70s. And the slow motion to epitomize the heroic struggle not helping either. We want to see the rush, the unforgiving cruelty of the race. The narration is OK, very strict about what's happening and that's good. Very realistic compared to other documentaries depicting the same era, the announcer at the start is actually the one present at the Tour nowadays, if I'm not mistaken...a little older maybe :)A few minutes with no subtitles, nothing disturbing the overall comprehension of the situation. All in all, a catchy movie this one, with so much resemblance with the present day races in France, not surprisingly. If we take away the elements that were put in the movie to make it a documentary, it's if you are there watching. And that's all you need.

This is a bike-fanatics dream of a movie, portraying the disciplin and heroism of the winners alongside the painfull realisation of own limits of the losers. The race takes place in the northern parts of France and lower countryside of Belgium, with a spectacular finish on the old stadium of Roubaix.

Starting with the preparation needed by the teams and cyclists prior to the event, this film follows one of the oldest and most famous one day classic bike races the Paris-Roubaix. Mixing country roads with more urban settings, the race is a challenging event that goes across cobbled roads and increasingly tough terrain. We watch the race to see the field gradually weeded down to the winners and the fate of the losers and the support riders.

The Paris-Roubaix is a great race we are told, but you wouldn't necessarily know it from this film which, although interesting, certainly doesn't inflame the passions in the casual viewer. I'm not a fan or even a follower of cycling so I suspect that this film was not aimed at me and fans of this sport can probably ignore many of my criticisms because they may not be problems for everyone. In essence the film does a good job of just showing the race from the inside – the tactics, the falls, the challenges but it does it all in a very cold, mechanical fashion that keeps it "interesting" but never more than that. The delivery doesn't help; the version I saw had English narration but no subtitles when any one else is speaking (directly to camera or not). This stopped me getting any insight from the people involved or even get to know them as people enough to care about the outcome of the race.

The narration is good but it doesn't help the film be more than "interesting". The English narration is sparse and rather detached from the action; it is better than an OTT commentator type but it does give you the feeling that the action is as ordinary as his consistent tone of voice suggests. The riders are the teams lack character (an important thing in sportsmen) but this may be down to me not being able to understand anything they said – perhaps those familiar with the riders will be more taken by them than I was.

Overall this is an interesting film that looks at the events during the race with a detached but slightly curious air that tended to keep me interested. However the lack of flair, passion or real insight was a problem and I didn't think it even got past this. Although the narration was quite good, the lack of subtitles took away from the riders etc and many viewers might feel (like I did) that the inability to understand the asides and interviews mean that you'll be missing out on some of the best bits of the film.

The film is as brilliant display of complexity of one in the most important one day races