When we’re introduced to Giuseppe Marinoni in the opening scene of this Canadian documentary, it feels like the first time director Tony Girardin is also meeting the legendary Montreal septuagenarian cyclist and bicycle frame manufacturer. It goes badly.
With his first question, in Anglophone Quebecois French, Girardin tries to placate: “I don't want to take too much of your time, but how long would it take a person to learn to build a bike like this?”
Marinoni’s face is suppressed rage. He slowly circles his jaw like some demented prize fighter and looks away. He ignores the question. He’s been asked it too many times. “Ostie,” he says.
Asked again, the explosive, cantankerous Marinoni rebukes the camera and he may as well be talking right at us. Girardin is there on our behalf and he’s not making a friend, not yet. Marinoni approaches the camera, stalking like a mother bear, and defends his territory. He’s stressed; the welds he’s been making to shape a metal frame will feel his stress. The frame will be compromised. He tells the director he has enough footage to study so he can go home and try to build a bike himself. “Voyons,” he says. The camera shakes as Girardin backs away.
The scene would be tense if it weren’t funny. A craftsman with genuine authenticity for his lifelong vocation has shut out a generation of wannabes obsessed with fixies. You can’t fake it with Marinoni. The director persists, over months, and it pays off.
The first time we see Marinoni smile, he’s on his bicycle. It’s one of his own, a dated red and yellow frame with drop handlebars. He wears a black toque. He tells Girardin, who rides alongside with camera in hand, that he’s heading home to eat an egg. Eggs, he says, “Made by chickens.” Smirk.
Although we don't see the director’s face, his hand-held camera negotiates the entire relationship between Marinoni and it’s easy to imagine Girardin doesn’t once put it down, even as the touchy first meetings turn to genuine friendship. Later, when Girardin takes a razor to shave the back of the cyclist’s thigh, the camera is steady in his other hand.
A tremendously successful racer in his youth, Marinoni came to Canada in 1965 at 17 with two racing jerseys and a pair of pants, he says. Nearly six decades later, his legs are still all shapely muscle. An old friend greets him by squeezing his thigh, testing the strength. The plot that drives the film is Marinoni’s intention to return to his childhood home in Italy to attempt a record-setting ride.
He will ride as hard and fast as he can for one hour around the track. He fears the test could kill him. He’s 75 but, at any age, this is one of sport’s most difficult feats. The record for his age group is more than 34 kilometres in 60 minutes. In an initial trial, he falls short.
Breaking under the anxiety, he lashes out at the ever-present camera. “You don’t get it,” he shouts at Girardin. “You think a smile is beaten with a smile on your face. You must push yourself.” And he begs the director to leave him in peace on the day of the trial by giving him space and staying to the shadows. When the day comes, their relationship status solid, Girardin asks probing questions. Unfortunately, this is unnecessary.
In one revealing visit, Marinoni spends time with Jocelyn Lovell, a Canadian cycling champion and 1978 Commonwealth Games record holder considered Canada's first cycling icon. Marinoni clearly cares deeply for Lovell, who rode one of his frames when he reached his highest successes — and it’s this decades-old bike that he will use in Italy for the record ride. In his basement, Lovell has another bike: the shattered body of the bicycle he was riding when he was struck and paralyzed. How he shows his thanks Marinoni is joyful and awful, both are reasons to cry.
The character and passion of Marinoni makes this film truly charming. His authenticity, vision and spirit make it clear why he makes friends of all ages and will not suffer fools.
VIFF screenings: 9:15 p.m. Oct. 2 at the Vancouver Playhouse; 4 p.m. Oct. 4 at the Vancouver Playhouse. For tickets, visit viff.org.
