Vive le Tour!

A mini-reportage on the Tour de France, as inconsequential as its subject. Malle's selection of images takes in the tangle of wheels and limbs, as a dozen cyclists pile into one another; a contestant clutching his crotch with what looks agonisingly like a hernia; the bizarre caravan of ambulances and reporters trailing in the race's wake; and some visual aids on how to pee and pedal simultaneously. Malle presents the event as an almost mystical phenomenon, unfathomable by those for whom such ordeals are to be at all costs avoided rather than actively sought. Delerue's score, with jaunty accordions giving way to melancholy strings, adds its own gloss.