Scottish cyclist David Millar was one of the best time trial cyclists in his generation. He was also one of the cyclists who was found guilty of doping in 2003. Millar was barred for 2 years but he managed to make a comeback with a new team. 2014 was meant to be his last season as a professional cyclist and the film team surrounding director Finlay Pretsell was supposed to follow him, ideally until the final leg of the Tour de France in Champs Elysée. The director was an amateur cyclist himself and you can see his love of the sport in the film. But nothing came of David Millar‘s heroic swan song in the Tour de Frace: the team kicked him out before the Tour.

TIME TRIAL turned into a tragic elegy, not only for the former idol David Millar, but also for cycling itself. Millar‘s doping story, his alcoholism, and his comeback are only mentioned in passing. TIME TRIAL is about cycling: about what it feels like to not be able to sit after 200 km legs, to torture yourself every day so you may keep getting tortured the next day. The sport footage is shot in rarely seen perfection and is absolutely thrilling. It‘s all about speed in the beginning: images of time trialing with the camera keeping a perfect distance to the cyclists while the blurred world flashes by until the camera can‘t keep up with the cycling speed anymore on a bend. Towards the end of the film, when Millar does the 290 km long one day race in Milan – San Remo in cold and rainy weather and his fingers become so slippery that he can‘t put on his rain jacket on the bike Millar has to get off the bicycle and it marks the moment of the end of his career - and you can tell that not just by watching his counselors faces.

Tom Dorow (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy