Although I drive a 'family' car I only do so to get from A to B. I'm not a car fanatic, never read a magazine devoted to cars and though I have seen movies like Grand Prix it was only because there was someone in the cast I admired (in the case of Grand Prix it was Yves Montand). When I stumbled across C'etait un rendez-vous in a Charity Shop I had never heard of it and bought it simply because of the name Claude Lelouch. I'd be lying if I said I didn't find it thrilling but it's also true to say that I have been to Paris getting on for fifty times and I not only love the place but recognized about 85 to 90 per cent of the route. Ironically Hitchcock is celebrated for the 'ten-minute take' which he utilized on 'Rope' - ten minutes being, of course, the maximum footage that can be shot without reloading the camera - and Rope is the exact opposite of 'Rendez-vous' slow paced in the extreme. Someone pointed out in this space that Rendez-vous is as much a love story as anything else, citing the beating heart at the beginning and the girl waiting at the other end. With Lelouch behind the camera that is entirely believable given that this is the man who made a chocolate-box romance featuring a Formula One racing driver. Whatever his intention, whatever he was driving, whatever his average speed, this remains a great piece of film making.
Review of Rendezvous
