Acting
The film follows the 1965 Tour de France not as a sports documentary but an atmospheric film of the events that surround it. Where riders are shown racing, it is an illustration of the hardship or the danger they face. The main events are the daily routines of the competitors, the bossing about of spectators by officials (which Lelouch emphasises by adding animal noises to the soundtrack), the monotonous days of journalists who follow the race for hours to write only a few hundred words, and the evening entertainment laid on by the Europe-1 radio station.
The determination of cyclist Marco Pantani leads him to win the Giro d'Italia and (as the only Italian) the Tour de France, as well as to overcome serious accidents. In 1999, his hematocrit level is found to be above the permitted threshold: this marks the beginning of a downward spiral that leads to depression and death from drugs.
