Directed by:
Jacques TatiScreenplay:
Jacques TatiComposer:
Alain RomansCast:
Jacques Tati, Édouard Francomme, René Lacourt, Jacques Cottin, Lucien Frégis, Micheline Rolla, Daniel Marquet, Nicole Chomo, Nathalie Pascaud, Marcel Girard (more)Plots(1)
The film marks the debut of Tati's altar ego, Mr. Hulot, a gangly and awkward Frenchman, perpetually the center and possible cause of a whirlwind of disasters, pratfalls, and mishaps. A series of disastrous coincidences, surreal sight gags and irascible indignations erupt around Mr. Hulot as he gallantly and obliviously strolls through his seaside vacation. While he tries to impress a lovely ingenue, Hulot inadvertently barges in on a funeral, ignites a fireworks stand with his pipe, and topples a Ming vase, rarely realizing the extent of the damage he causes. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (2)
If Mr.Bean and Frank Drebin could, by some sick coincidence, produce their own offspring, he or she would probably behave just like Mr. Hulot. I'm only talking about the heartfelt spontaneity and unintentional pathos of the title character, whom we come to love even though, unlike the two aforementioned figures, he’s far from being the main and only source of entertainment in the story; there’s also the overall openness and disjointedness of the narrative development, where characters and subplots pile on top of each other, scenes are repeated from different perspectives, characters are characterised by doing nothing and reacting to Hulot's eccentricity, and the main catalyst for individual situations or stylistic choices is not their subordination to the narrative, but the subordination to a system that might be described as one of controlled chance – everything looks like a series of random sketches where Hulot accidentally disrupts the stereotype of resort life, but the course of the disruption is in fact minutely and systematically orchestrated, gradually unravelling the pattern of routine inherent in the idle accomplices of a seven-day holiday. Tati is not only brilliant in his grotesque sketches, the number of which is perhaps a waste for a single film, but also perfectly depicts the conflict of human nature, culminating in an smart, often openly ironic humorous whirlwind. I would really love to have a beer with Tatin, Hulot is my kind of dude. 100%
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It's fascinating how even a mostly wordless film can say so much. Jacques Tati resigned himself to what people say because what they do is equally important. And precisely by that, it manages to express a considerable number of jokes. It's not exactly breathtaking, but it's consistently funny, sometimes in a silly way, but that's part of its charm. It's like a force of nature casually passing through a resort town.
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