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Road To Roubaix (DVD)
Year:
Rating: G
Distributor: Aztec
The Film: 3.5
The Disc: 3.5
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5
Like many niche documentaries, Dave Cooper and David Deal's loving Road To Roubaix sits uneasily between two audiences: diehard enthusiasts and fans of non-fiction curios. This thoughtfully made film seeks to display the grizzled elegance of the 110-year-old Paris-Roubaix bicycle road race, but too often overlooks the event's true spirit, which is hard-boiled and gritty.
The so-called "Hell of the North" is famous for both its eminence and its difficulty; about 20 percent of its 250-kilometre length is chunky, rough-hewed cobblestone road, which creates major work for medics and mechanics alike - especially when it rains, which is frequently. The filmmakers dwell on sweeping shots of idyllic countryside and still photographs of mud-caked riders, constructing a lilting, 75-minute meditation on athletic perseverance. For many racers, however, simply finishing the gruelling race is a major achievement, and Road To Roubaix occasionally loses sight of the race's well-deserved reputation of difficulty. Compounding this dissonance, a 1976 documentary, A Sunday In Hell, hangs like a spectre over this film, simultaneously forgiving and questioning the filmmakers' poetic perspective in the face of the race's testosterone-dipped machismo. This release happily includes extras with Stuart O'Grady, the Australian rider who won the 2007 event.