The Stars and the Water Carriers

Stars and Watercarriers is movie about one of the strangest and toughest jobs of this world: professional bike racer. And one of the toughest scenes for this job: Giro dItalia Tour of Italy. Leths film is sequenced in eleven chapters that follows the race, to a degree chronological, but always interrupted to allow Leth to tell the real story about the race the many races inside the race: The Champion (Eddy Merckx in those days) dominant in his attempt to win the race for the fourth time in six years (he succeeded). The Mad Man, Fuentes, who three or four times escapes from the Peloton, and every time, but the last, gets caught by Merckx. The inter-generation struggle. Being a pro-rider is having solved the conflict between ambition and loyalty is Joergen Leths central thesis. This conflict is repeated every day, in new combinations of plans, ambitions, accidents in every imaginable shape. That is why cycle racing, especially those three-week-stage-races, are highly fascinating. It is also the question for the film makers: a short insertion about the Bianchi Team mechanics morning routine on preparing the bicycles for the days work, is the result of a photographers remorse. Holmberg missed filming a stage after being on a spree. The next morning he filmed the essential, moving scene. A turning point in the film.