No rant. I would like to thank those who left comments and emails last week. THANKS!
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I love movies. They represent escapism, art, intellect and spirituality. Some are nothing more than popcorn flicks, designed to ease the burden of "real-life" for a couple of hours. Some bring important issues to the forefront that challenges how we perceive our surroundings. The most important thing for me – if one is a serious filmgoer – is to constantly expand and discover new movies. This includes experiencing stories told outside of North America.
Yes, I know: "I don't like to read while I watch movies". Well, neither do I, but I won't use that to prevent me from finding a great story within the screen. It is important, as human beings to discover other cultures and expand our perceptions of those different from us and how they see the world. There are reasons that Bergman, Kurosawa, Fellini, Ozu and Truffaut are important in the movie world – They are just great at what they do.
I intend to highlight a new film every week that is considered "foreign-language"; now that definition is simple, yet broad and complex. For example, if you need subtitles to understand the events of the plot, I will discuss it. If it is a film from a primarily English-speaking nation, but is *NOT* in English (i.e. Leolo or Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner from Canada), I will discuss. If it is a film from outside the U.S. and it *is* in English, I will not discuss (sorry, Brits & Aussies) – for now. My goal is to shed light on some of these gems, and help quell the insatiable appetites for those who can't live without seeing a new movie. Enjoy!
Les Vacances de M. Hulot: Mr. Hulot's Holiday
Country: France
Runtime: 114 min
Distributed by
Release Date: February 25th, 1953
Directed by Jacques Tati
Cast
Jacques Tati
Nathalie Pascaud
Louis Perrault
Michele Rolla
Andre Dubois
Suzy Willy
Valentine Camax
Lucien Fregis
Raymond Carl
There are reasons that cannot be explained in words why the films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton have been able to survive for generations. Even in our terribly cynical world where we as human beings have been spoon fed from birth to expect the worst in almost any situation, there is something refreshing in the simplicity in which these individuals encounter the rigors of daily life. Chaplin got his laughs from observation while Keaton got his laughs from stunts. One was a passive observer who just happened to get in the way, the other was a more ambitious do-gooder who didn't mind getting in the way. Their antics have brought smiles to children, and made adults feel like children.
French filmmaker Jacques Tati functions in the same universe as Chaplin and Keaton. Unlike the two masters of silent film during its infancy, Tati doesn't bog his universe down in a traditional plotline – instead, he observes behavior – not just of human existence, but of the universe itself. His films are comedies, but aren't funny in the way someone tells a joke or in the physical sense like a Jim Carrey, but more funny on another level…something philosophical – like in the way two people wind up humming the same song stuck in their head through sheer coincidence or how we envision a odd relative during a family reunion. There is a fondness in nostalgia and the mundane that washes joy over us.
Mr. Hulot's Holiday is one of those films that says plenty without saying much at all. Released in 1953, years before the French New Wave and during the opening stages of the Cold War, the film was a sensation for its minimalism, its lack of outward cynicism and for its lead protagonist, Mr. Hulot himself. Mr. Hulot's Holiday earned Tati and collaborator Henri Marquet an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Mr. Hulot's Holiday follows the generally harmless misadventures of a lovable, gauche Frenchman, Monsieur Hulot (played by Tati himself) as he spends an obligatory August vacation at a beach resort in Brittany. Hulot is a tall man, dressed in standard summer holiday gear and his trusty tobacco pipe. He is a human created with nothing but angles to him that makes him stand out as a figure of organic architecture. He arrives to the resort in a tiny car – a 1924 Amilcar to be exact – which Roger Ebert describes as an automobile "which looks like it was made for a Soap Box Derby and rides on bicycle wheels." He interrupts a poor dog who just wants to sleep on the side of the road while doing so. A quaint little jazz piece, mostly variations on Alain Romans theme "Quel temps fait-il à Paris" plays on the soundtrack and will be the recurring piece that will give the film its lightweight groove. We will soon understand that Hulot is all about inconvenience, even though that is not his intent.
The film affectionately lampoons several hidebound elements of French political and economic classes, from chubby capitalists and self-important Marxist intellectuals to petty proprietors and drab dilettantes, most of whom find it nearly impossible to free themselves, even temporarily, from their rigid social roles in order to relax and enjoy life. The film also gently mocks the confidence of postwar western society in the primacy of work over leisure and the value of complex technology over simple pleasures, themes that would resurface in Tati's later films, especially Play Time.
There is never a closeup shot of Hulot, a man who is so friendly and polite that when an announcer on the hotel's radio says ``Good night, everybody!'' he bows and doffs his hat. Tati was dead-set on keeping Hulot as a man of few expressions, and to keep him in the background. This allows the viewer to be trapped in the world with him instead of observing his reactions within it. Hulot is a man that doesn't draw much attention to himself unless the universe forces his hand – usually when something goes wrong – which often it does. The lobby of the hotel perched on the seaside is a location of serenity until Hulot enters and leaves the door open. The breeze that follows him jumpstarts a chain reaction of small, head-scratching and amusing hassles to those inside. The gags aren't screwball side-splitting comedic moments, but the little things that people relate to that are orchestrated in such a way that it resembles a Loony Toons cartoon playing to a whimsical musical. Tati was known for his meticulous attention to detail and I can only imagine how long it took to set up all those individual gags.
For the most part, Mr. Hulot's Holiday is a "silent" film – meaning that any spoken dialogue is limited to the role of background sounds. Combined with frequent long shots of scenes with multiple characters, Tati believed that the results would tightly focus audience attention on the comical nature of humanity when interacting as a group, as well as his own meticulously choreographed visual gags. However, the film is by no means a pure 'silent' comedy, as it uses natural and man-made sounds not only for comic effect but also for character development. Take for example the door in the dining room of the hotel and the sound it makes. Poor Hulot is placed in a spot closest to it. It sounds like one of those spring doorstoppers that my sister and I always pulled back and watch retract when we were younger and paid attention to such noises in awe. It never ceases and one could imagine Hulot's annoyance with it. It's a "little thing", but in the context of the situation, it is a little thing with major worth. It's not the door's fault it makes the sound it makes, though – so Hulot just allows it do what it does and exist in the frame that it does.
The one thing I have always appreciated about Mr. Hulot's Holiday is the care and love that Tati obviously has for the setting and the characters that inhabit it. The film was shot almost entirely in the tiny west-coast seaside village of Saint-Marc-sur-Mer in Loire Atlantique, and the hotel in which Mr Hulot stays (l'Hotel de la Plage) is still there to this day where a bronze statue of Hulot overlooking the beach. Tati had fallen in love with the beguiling coastline while staying in nearby Port Charlotte with his friends before World War II and resolved to return one day to make a film there. Tati doesn't take the time to establish his characters, but over time the audience is able to recognize recurring characters that saunter in and out of the frame.
There is a waiter (Raymond Carl) who is exhausted at the trouble the tourists put him through; a retired Commandant (Andre Dubois) who gets offended rather easily and his wife (Suzy Willy). René Lacourt and Marguerite Gérard play a couple who have a strange affinity to inspect everything around them. Valentine Camax plays a polite and overly cheery Englishwoman who seems (from my point-of-view) to carry the bulk of the nonsensical dialogue in the film. Children who carry ice cream cones that teeter on the edge of spilling but never quite reaches it, and finally, Martine (Nathalie Pascaud) – a pretty blond girl who is on holiday by herself.
Hulot is a single man, and if this were any other normal filmmaker – even Chaplin – there would be a plot that would revolve around Hulot bumbling his way around the resort in hopes to impress the pretty woman. There would be misunderstandings and miscommunication, hilarity would ensue and finally, Hulot would get the girl. Tati does not steer the film in this direction, though – and the story is actually better off for it. Hulot takes Martine on a ride and they embark on walks together, but she always keeps him distant with her cheerful nature. Hulot is not a brute, nor does he function solely on his hormones and testosterone, so she remains nothing more than a pleasant vision just out of reach with implications of "what if" attached. Besides, Hulot doesn't exactly strike one as a man who could willingly engage in a stimulating conversation – or would even need to.
There are scenes of miraculous invention, such as a great one-two punch gag involving Hulot and a kayak. The first concerns Hulot painting the kayak on the beach, as the tide carries his paintcan out to sea before it wonderfully returns again – just in the perfect moment in time when he needs to dip his brush in it. Many film scholars and critics over the years have debated how Tati got this moment right. The scene seems to give us a little taste of the mysteries of the universe. It isn't funny in the way Will Farrell tackles a hapless bystander and goes ape-shit on him. It is funny in the way we regard things in wonder and say to ourselves, "Now how is that even possible?" Tati couldn't have had control of the tide to achieve his trick…could he? It is splendid in the way Houdini baffled his audience or how David Blaine stunned onlookers when he initially became famous for his "street magic".
The next scene shows Hulot paddling his kayak, which is tiny and definitely the wrong size for him, just like his car. Tati understood the juxtaposition of contrasting dimensions and shapes and never took his audience's intelligence for granted. One look at the small boat and we would expect for him to enter and the boat would sink and he would get wet and the audience would have a hearty guffaw and leave it at that. Tati took the joke one step further, telegraphing every spoof film that would have been made after the success of Jaws, except there was no John Williams score to hammer the point over our heads. Throughout all this, Hulot remains oblivious. Hulot could have easily been conceived in the same world as Inspector Gadget and Inspector Clouzout.
On its release in the United States, Bosley Crowther's review of Mr. Hulot's Holiday said that the film contained "much the same visual satire that we used to get in the 'silent' days from the pictures of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and such as those." He said the film "exploded with merriment" and that Tati "is a long-legged, slightly pop-eyed gent whose talent for caricaturing the manners of human beings is robust and intense..." Roger Ebert claims that the film has become part of his "treasure". It is ranked #49 in Empire magazines "100 Best Films Of World Cinema" that was released this year.
Despite being universally accepted as a French filmmaker, Jacques Tati was born Jacques Tatischeff in Le Pecq, Yvelines – the son of a Russian nobleman and a Dutch woman. After a career as a professional rugby player (!), Tati found success as a mime in French music halls. In the late 1930s Tati shot some of his early supporting cameos on film with some success and thus began his career as a filmmaker. In all but his very last film, Tati played the lead character, who - with the exception of his first and last films - is the gauche and socially inept Monsieur Hulot. With his trademark raincoat, umbrella and pipe, Hulot is among the most memorable comic characters in cinema. Despite completing only six feature-length films in his career, Tati is commonly placed among the greatest of all filmmakers, even being voted 46th in Entertainment Weekly's poll of the Greatest Movie Directors.
There are films that resemble old friends. You stay with them, watch their world go by and bid farewell until the next time you see them, confident in the way that they will always be there to make you smile, make you comfortable and make you feel safe. Mr. Hulot's Holiday is one of those films. It is impossible to tire of these characters, or Hulot himself, as you know he will never stand a chance against a horse – or have problems with a backpack that is too heavy for him. He is a good friend. Most importantly, he is ultimately reliable.
Oh, you crazy Hulot. We'll see you here next year…
Mr. Hulot's Holiday is currently available on DVD.
Trailer for Mr. Hulot's Holiday
{Film Passport Stamped]
Coming Attractions: Jacques Tati's Oscar-Winning film following Mr. Hulot as he collides with the gadgets of the future. Hilarity ensues.
Here is the list of festivals that may potentially show Beating Traffic; if you want to see the film played in your area, email the organizers. The best way to ensure to see a movie you want to see is to express the demand for it. Click on the links to get more information!
