Synopsis
From the Ardennes to the Izoard pass, along the departmental roads and on the steep paths, a swarm of campers are setting off to celebrate the Tour de France. The sun is warming up, the deckchairs are out, the friends are arriving: it’s summer, the great mass is starting. A funny, touching and poignant look at these fans of the world’s greatest cycling race.
A word from Tënk
A light-hearted, family-friendly summer documentary, La Grand-Messe chooses to focus on the off-field of the Tour de France. The bicycle sightings are, after all, peripheral to the importance of these weeks of leisure spent on the side of the road, in the heat of summer - a time suspended to cross the lives and roads of people who have come with the same objective. We take care of those who live in the neighboring camper. The carefree nature of this vacation is also crossed by worries, desires, and shortages. And if the film isn't necessarily concerned with a sociological investigation, nor the analysis of the commercial system of the sporting event, the characters, far from the race to the efficiency, ask without knowing it the question of the time once it is said " free " and which, of course, here, occupies all their days.
Charlène Dinhut
Programmer and curator
