C'était un rendez-vous

C'était un rendez-vous


C'était un rendez-vous (It was a date) is a short film of under 10 minutes, recorded in Paris in 1976 by Claude Lelouch. The viewer is placed at the front of a car driving at an extraordinary speed through Paris at 5.30 in the morning, passing by famous tourist attractions such as the Arc de Triomphe, Opéra Garnier, and Place de la Concorde. The driver eventually ends up in Montmartre in front of the Sacré Cœur cathedral and meets a blonde woman who runs up the stairs to greet him, hence the name C'était un rendez-vous.

Rumour has it that Lelouch was arrested after the release of the film because the drive was of course illegal. In the film we see the driver speeding the wrong way down one way streets, driving on the pavement to avoid oncoming vehicles and pedestrians jumping out the way. The car is said to be a Mercedes, but the soundtrack of a racing car is from another Italian vehicle, a Ferrari. No one knows for sure who the driver is, some rumours suggest it is an F1 racer, others suggest there were more than 1 person in the car, but the most common suggestion is that Lelouch himself was driving as it is believed the blonde woman by Sacré Cœur is Lelouch's girlfriend.

I enjoyed the film a lot, especially because I went to Paris in March for the first time and fell in love with the city, it was great to see a new familiar city being shown in a film such as  C'était un rendez-vous and recognising the sites zooming past the car.