It is 1828, June 11, 1955. In the pit line. the engine of Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes is propelled into the stand. Photo credit: PhotoPQR/OuestFrance/ MAxPPP
We know everything about this tragic moment. Numerous works, and other documentaries, have already dissected it, minute by minute, second by second. However, Emmanuel Reyé’s film, broadcast on October 8 on Planète+ and available on MycCanal, is special. Because the documentarian lost two of his uncles, Claude and François, mowed down in the dealers’ stand, on June 11, 1955, at 6:28 p.m., at the 24 hours of Le Mans.
They appear on the grim list of 82 missing and 120 injured in the biggest tragedy in motorsport. Everyone has the images of the drama in their heads. Those of Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes 300 SLR which takes off and explodes, its burning engine thrown into the audience.
A drama and a taboo
The director saw these images, reviewed them, and dissected them. He submitted them to witnesses of the time, to the last survivors, to historians, and to journalists too, such as Jean-Louis Moncet or Stéphane Barbé. And especially to his family. Because Le Mans 1955 is something unsaid by the Reyé clan, something we don’t talk about. He himself learned of his uncles’ fate when he was 17, from an outside person.
The members of his family, all those who never spoke of this disaster, he listened to them and they spoke, sometimes relieved, of coming out of this silence of almost 70 years. With them, and with archival sums, Reyé goes from the tragedy of the intimate to the disaster of history, that of a terrifying race, which resumed its course as if nothing had happened, because the 24 hours du Mans are sacred?
“The accordion was playing, an hour after the tragedy”
Especially because issues as financial, diplomatic as colossal have won against the pain of dozens of families. “an hour after the tragedy, the cars were driving and the accordion was playing” remembers a witness. And the next day, the newspaperTeam announced, in the headline and on the front page: “ Hawthorn (who was involved in the tragedy) wins a record victory ». the drama in question is of course mentioned, but in smaller print. The sport must go on.
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