115 DB

In a rich experience brought to life by surround sound, the Spa-Francorpchamps race track in Belgium reveals an ordinary and friendly life behind-the-scenes, where competition gives way to the amateur event.

The noise of an engine, comments over the loudspeakers, the clatter of parts changed at top speed by a swarm of mechanics… What first strikes you in this film with its sonorous (but perhaps military-like) title is the finesse of its sound mix. Despite the feeling of immersion created by the surround sound, the volume of the engines on the Belgian SpaFrancorpchamps racing track never drowns out the other sounds. This choice points to the whole structure of the film: we set off to watch a race, but only catch fragments of it from the sidelines, be it on the edge of the track or in the wings, where women and children murmuring different languages share sandwiches with the sometimes exhausted racers. The race-track speaker pronounces the word “procedure”, but the easy-going atmosphere belies the term. Clearly, what people come here to find is a simple sharing, a surpassing of oneself rather than the other, the principle of competition being ousted by a joyfulness reminiscent of the Berliners’ weekends in Robert Siodmak’s People on Sunday. Under the helmets, the captains’ age intimates that these races, though serious, are not professional. Once emptied, the cold beauty of the place shows that the hubbub was a parenthesis: no trace of the winner, everyone has returned to civil life, and the remaining decibels are those of the cleaning truck.