Racing for Family
For years, lists of the greatest racing movies seemed to include ‘Michel Vaillant’, yet the film remains an obscure European curiosity to many North American fans. Released in 2003, the live-action movie was based on a French comic-book hero, first published in 1957. The film was reportedly a commercial disappointment, earning about $7.2 million against a hefty $26 million budget.
The most important thing to remember when watching ‘Michel Vaillant’ is that it is NOT the comic book. That may have been the killer for French audiences expecting a faithful cinematic rendition of a beloved national hero. Writer-producer Luc Besson instead created something much more stylized. Like the Wachowskis’ later ‘Speed Racer‘, it uses intense colour, impossible camera angles and images of speed that show racing in ways a spectator could never experience from the grandstands.
After an ominous opening dream, the movie drops Michel and his team into a WRC rally in Canada. It immediately establishes something central to the Michel Vaillant universe: Vaillante is not tied to one kind of motorsport. Across the comics, Michel competes in Formula 1, rallying, endurance racing, the Indy 500 and Dakar. The fictional Vaillante operation behaves less like a race team and more like a racing empire!
But the 24 Hours of Le Mans is the movie’s centrepiece. Team Vaillante’s old enemy Team Leader returns with a vendetta, and an increasingly sinister plot places Michel’s family in danger and pressures the team to lose the race. The details are best left unspoiled because the plot really becomes an excuse to put these race cars into some extraordinary situations.
And this is where ‘Michel Vaillant’ earns its place among racing movies. Much of the Le Mans material was filmed during the actual 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2002, with two competition cars entered specifically for the production. It recalls what Steve McQueen did decades earlier while making ‘Le Mans‘. The result is real racing underneath all the cinematic exaggeration.
One scene feels particularly familiar to anyone who grew up on early-2000s car movies. Michel drives a Pagani Zonda around the circuit while Julie —his teammate and love interest— covers his eyes, proving he knows the track almost by instinct. It recalls Brian O’Conner in ‘2 Fast 2 Furious‘, speeding down the highway while staring at Monica Fuentes instead of the road. Both scenes share the same wonderfully ridiculous idea: a truly great movie driver proves his skill by not looking where he is going.
Yet beneath all that machinery, ‘Michel Vaillant’ is really about family. Michel races for Team Vaillante, his family’s race team. His father Henri owns it. His brother Jean-Pierre runs it. The other drivers become an extension of that family. Michel’s greatest decisions are not motivated by trophies or the pursuit of racing glory. They are motivated by loyalty.
That makes ‘Michel Vaillant’ unexpectedly similar to ‘Fast & Furious‘, where the cars bring everyone together, but family gives the racing meaning.
Winning matters. Who you are racing for matters more.