Hell on Wheels
by Pepe Danquart
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DVD details
Actor: Baden Cooke, Hagen BoÃ?dorf, Lance Armstrong, Rolf Aldag, Santiago BoteroDirector: Pepe Danquart
Brand: Koch International
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); German (Original Language), Unknown; English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.77:1
Running Time: 123 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-11-22
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
DVD Reviews of Hell on Wheels
DVD Review: Almost great.
Summary: 4 Stars
Knowledgeable fans of bicycle racing will enjoy the great footage and this behind-the-scenes look at the German Telekom (now T-Mobile) team in the 2003 Tour De France. However, the lack of narration in this documentary makes it hard for me to give it five stars. It's not that there was too little narration. There is none whatsoever, and very little dialog to keep you informed about what you're watching. I've been following professional cycling since 1984, so I don't need someone to tell me who Eric Zabel is, what the polka dotted jersey means, or how teamwork plays a role in stage racing, but I still thought this film could have been enhanced with at least some minimal narration, if done properly. An option on the DVD of having a soundtrack with the director's comments would have been a great enhancement. The film consists of many interesting bits: Telekom riders (Mostly Zabel) speaking to someone off-camera in German (with English subtitles), segments of an unnamed Tour historian speaking passionately about the history of the Tour, a great deal of footage of the race itself, and multiple scenes of the team's soigner massaging the riders, rubbing chamois cream in their shorts, and providing encouragement to them when they're discouraged. Occasionally the soigner speaks to the camera, but we never learn his name until the closing credits. Actually, we're never told who most of these people are, or what is happening in the race results. Bike racing fans will know these things, but the film expects an unusually high level of knowledge from its audience. There are a couple of interviews (again, with subtitles) of unidentified riders from other teams, but they weren't major stars I'd recognize like Hamilton, Beloki, Mayo and others. The film focuses mostly on the riders' comments about their careers, the sport itself, and their relationships with their teammates. We're never told what stage it is, or what the results are at that point, as if the race itself had no importance. Nothing is mentioned about the very significant fact that Zabel was competing for the green (sprinter's) jersey, or fact that he had won it before. One of the biggest stories of the race was the fact that, after being kicked off the team the year before, and coming back on a lesser squad, Jan Ullrich (a former Tour de France winner for Telekom) was having a great comeback and was threatening Lance Armstrong for the overall. This story, and many of the other fascinating stories of that Tour, is never described to the viewer. In one especially frustrating segment, we follow Alexandre Vinokourov through part of a time trial. We hear the announcer at the finish line state that Ullrich had the best time so far, with Armstrong in second and at that point we wait for Vinokourov to finish to find out the final results. After the race, we hear somebody off camera congratulate him, but we're never told where he ended up in the stage that day. He finished third incidentally, but I didn't get that information from the film. This documentary could have really had some mass appeal to a much wider audience, if only they'd made the effort to provide a voice-over filling in the blanks. As it is, bike racing fans will like it, but those who don't know anything about the sport may have a hard time paying attention through the whole thing. The lack of narration has certain advantages, however. It is more of a fly-on-the-wall perspective, as if you're traveling with the team and you're witnessing events as they occur and left to your own knowledge to interpret the significance of what's happening. For that reason, it's a good film to watch with your bike racing buddies. Finally, compared with the OLN coverage we're used to in the U.S., it can be refreshing NOT to hear Phil and Paul fill every available space of silence with their constant excitable chatter (and over-used self-invented clichés) while watching a bike race. Fans of this film will also enjoy "Overcoming", a 2005 film about the CSC team.
Description of Hell on Wheels
LOVE LANCE? You'll love HELL ON WHEELS, the first film about professional bike racing that anyone can appreciate, featuring the world's best bike racers -- Lance Armstrong, Eric Zabel, Jan Ullrich, Tyler Hamilton, Alexandre Vinokurov, Andreas Klöden-- and directed by Academy Award-winner Pepe Danquart!Le Tour de France, one of the toughest and most prestigious sporting events in the world. Year after year hundreds of thousands of fans line the route, cheering on their heroes and willing them to victory, while millions of viewers worldwide tune in on their televisions. Academy Award-winning director Pepe Danquart, fascinated by the spectacle of the three week race, chose to focus on the courage, the pain and the fear of the riders of the Tour.
Training his lens on German superstar sprinter Eric Zabel and his loyal domestique Rolf Aldag, Danquart captures the thrill of the race and the teamwork behind the stars of the peleton. He also shines light on the Tour's supporting cast - the director sportifs, masseurs, and, of course, the wildly enthusiastic fans. Reveling in the stunning landscape - from the Alps to the Pyrenees to the Massif Central to Paris - and with a nice dollop of Le Tour's history, HELL ON WHEELS transcends the sport it celebrates to reveal an astonishing human endeavor.
There may never be a better documentary about the Tour de France bicycle race than Hell on Wheels. Directed by German filmmaker Pepe Danquart (who won an Oscar® for best live action short film in 1994), this breathtaking documentary covers all aspects of the 2003 edition of the Tour de France, and it's likely to remain the definitive record of the event from an immediate you-are-there perspective. Outstanding cinematography, award-winning editing, and the extreme challenge of the Tour make this a truly unforgettable film, full of real-life drama and fascinating competitors who bring a deeply human dimension to cycling's annual extravaganza. This was the year that American cycling legend Lance Armstrong won his fifth consecutive Tour de France victory, but Danquart's film wisely avoids overemphasis on Armstrong's dominance, focusing instead on German teammates Eric Zabel and Rolf Aldag, whose 11-year history as Tour de France roommates lends the film a more personal quality that gets you right inside the Tour's physical and psychological endurance test. The July 2003 event marked the Tour's centenary celebration, and French scholar Serge Laget provides valuable perspective on the race's cultural importance in France, with vintage film clips to illustrate how the grueling 2,500-kilometer Tour has evolved--and stayed the same--throughout its 100-year history. Highlights are abundant (including Armstrong's nearly devastating crash late in the race), but Hell on Wheels goes beyond basic sports reportage to achieve the dramatic impact of a feature film. Danquart strikes a satisfying balance between beautiful travelogue footage of the French countryside (including the Tour's scenic stages in the Pyrenees mountains) and the veteran's perspective of Zabel, whose honest assessment of his own cycling abilities makes you realize that even great cyclists view the Tour with awe, fear, and inspiring courage. In capturing the beauty, pain, and glory of cycling's most daunting competition, Hell on Wheels caters to a specific audience while retaining its universal appeal as a colorful and exhilarating film that anyone can enjoy. --Jeff Shannon
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