This Nearly 8-Minute Traffic Jam Scene Has The Best Cars In The Most Alarming Contexts

I remember seeing this movie years and years ago, at a friend’s house, during the era when the internet was accessed through loud, screechy modems that logged into AOL or some text-only university computer. I mention this just to note that I had no way to prepare myself for what I was about to witness. The movie, a VHS copy of Jean Luc Godard’s 1967 black –really, this is unrepentantly dark – comedy titled, innocently, Week-End, happened to have one of the greatest collections of cars I had ever seen on screen.

They just all happened to be in a nearly eight-minute-long traffic jam/automotive carnage scene that was all shot in one incredible take, took over 3/4 of a mile when shot, and may be one of the best-worst traffic jam scenes in cinema history.

I was suckered in because that traffic jam was like a line-up of every car I’ve ever been fascinated by, and the “hero” car pushing its way through it was also incredible, and not one I’d ever seen in a movie before – a 1960 Facel-Vega Facellia. But before I get too deep into the cars, take a look at the movie’s official trailer:

As you see, the trailer includes some shots of the legendary traffic jam scene, populated as it is with Minis and Fiats and Citroëns and Simcas; there’s also some suggestions of the other parts of the movie, which involve a lot of bleak, murderous motives and even some cannibalism, all in the context of a nice weekend getaway. Sort of. It’s, you, know, weird. Like late ’60s French weird.

But this traffic jam scene, holy clams, you need to just take that all in. Here’s all seven minutes and 40 seconds of it:

It starts with that Facel-Vega passing a Fiat 850 and Renault Dauphine, then a Simca, and a Mini, and it just keeps getting better and better. A Peugeot and a 2CV are playing catch. That’s fun! But things get more grim. We see an overturned Dauphine, and soon a Volvo P1800. There’s what seem to be lions in a truck, and then monkeys and a llama, just before a Volvo 140.

And look! An incredibly rare Panhard convertible!

There’s DSs and Panhards and Renault 4s and a sailboat and people playing chess or something between cars:

..and at least one NSU Sport Prinz:

Here’s a nice Citroën DS and Mini, palling around, along with a nice look at midcentury roof rack packing techniques:

And a Mini crushed into a fastback, across from what may be a bisected man?

It’s horrific and incredible all at once. There’s not a car in this jam that I wouldn’t love to own, too; some of them I have owned, like the 2CV and Volvo P1800. It’s just strange seeing so many of my favorite cars in such straits. Of course, the chaos and violence and hostility are magnified for effect here, and with the constant din of honking horns and bickering people, the overall effect is definitely unsettling.

Just to give a sense of the sort of bleak commentary this movie sought to make, when the lead characters’ Facel-Vega finally meets its doom, one of the characters screams in agony, but only because her Hermès bag was left behind:

I wonder if Godard’s traffic jam sequences are part of what Jaques Tati may have been referencing and parodying in his 1971 film Trafic, which includes a similar chaos-fueled traffic jam, but this one has much more absurd levity and a more silly/fun sort of exaggeration:

Great cars in here, too like, that nose-riding Citroën DS. I know the suspensions on those cars were capable of all sorts of fun tricks, but I don’t think they normally could do that. Oh, and if you like Capris, watch to the end!

Tati has more good automotive scenes in his movies, also crammed full of great cars. We’ll cover more of those in future Cold Starts, I promise!