Long distance bicycle tours are called Brevet (French for “test”). The most famous Brevet is Paris-Brest-Paris. Every four years, 6000 cyclists try to ride the 1230 kilometers within 90 hours.
Brevet is also the name of a documentary about that tour, which I watched last weekend. It follows three cyclists throughout the tour, one of which is a 72-year-old who is riding this tour for the seventh time.
If you’re even remotely interested in cycling, I can highly recommend this movie. Stunning landscapes in France, lovely people on bikes and at the roadsides, and lots of little stories of cyclists trying to find out what they’re capable of. I had a smile on my face for the whole thing.
Not so with The Big Short, which I also watched last weekend. Although not a documentary, it felt very much like one documenting brazenness of the financial industry leading to the meltdown in 2008. With this one, it’s more of a constant mumbling of “what the fuck?”