Pretty Good

Let's be realistic.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Like the man said if you're going to steal then steal from the best, something Jacques Tati took to heart, it seems clear he spent his youth screening one Buster Keaton movie after another and then starting again from the beginning until he'd mastered every sight gag, every move, every iota of comic timing from a master and then done his inept best to imitate it. He does, of course, rate top Brownie Points for taste and lesser Brownie Points for Effort but it's not enough to admire the Eiffel Tower to the extent that it inspires you to design and build one of your own, the trick is not just to replicate but to excel and come up with a better tower than the original. This is not to say that this movie lacks entertainment value in fact if you've never heard of or actually seen even a mediocre Buster Keaton movie and dig slapstick then chances are you'll enjoy this. Alas, I have seen the odd Buster Keaton movie ...

Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati) comes to a beachside hotel for a vacation, where he accidentally (but good-naturedly) causes havoc.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. Is this, in some small way, a precursor to "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"? On its release in the United States, Bosley Crowther's review 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." Crowther is quite right, and it would be no surprise if Tati used these earlier comedians as his template. His previous film, "Jour de Fete", had all the earmarks of a silent comedy.

My second Tati's film after PLAYTIME (1967, 9/10), MR. HULOT'S HOLIDAY is when the titular character, Tati's on-screen proxy, was introduced for the first time, a tall, polite, convivial and slightly ungainly gentleman, whose silhouette resembles an adult version of Tintin, drives with his cramped jalopy, but his eyes flicker self-possessed wisdom and unlike the modernistic urban spectacle in the PLAYTIME, this film is confined to a specified rural location, among miscellaneous characters, Mr. Hulot is the prominent player and seamless skits climates with a spectacular hoot of fireworks. Tati is a sterling humorist, a punctilious life observer, but never an orderly storyteller, so this beach side vocation is a laid-back assemblage of stunts stemming from sheer coincidence, mindless slips or distractions, antics with deadpan seriousness, classic slapstick and precisely calculated gags. The master strokes are plentiful, in particular, the magic paint bucket which wondrously floats with the tides to the very spots uncannily when Mr. Hulot is painting a canoe, which later snaps in half in the middle of the water, this entails intricate camera-work to bring to fruition of all Tati's quirky mind's eye. The black humor emitted from a tire-and-wreath blooper and the subsequent handshake consolation is pitch-perfect and timeless. Also it is a riot to be amused by the prank of Hulot's invincible serving in the tennis match, all connote that Tati is not only, a steady successor of comedy masters like Chaplin, Keaton, but also a trend-setter of his own trademark humanistic concern conflated with Gallo-sense of satire. Each day kicks off with light jazz fusions then randomly follows the recreation of the tourists, which concocts a kaleidoscope of people's mindset at then and unremittingly tickles our ribs with Tati's witty, unsophisticated, knowing gimmicks which ruefully reminisce us comedies can also be stylish and virtuous, furthermore compel us to lament what's wrong with the present hurly-burly of comedy, is it true that our public taste of humor has plummeted that deep? Modern potboiler-makers, please regress to the masters of yore for inspiration and stop inculcating us with bawdy, vulgar and unhealthy duds.

excerpt, more at my location - Those reverent of the bane of slapstick British TV comedy, Mr. Bean, may be surprised to learn that the show sprang from much deeper-rooted influences within comedic cinema. In 1953, Jacques Tati followed up his debut film, Jour de Fete, with Les Vacances De M. Hulot, the tale of a man who gets himself into hairier situations than the undeniably popular Bean, yet escapes relatively unharmed. Les Vacances De M. Hulot is less straightforward, and rather a damning social commentary from the director at its helm, but nevertheless uses similar techniques to elicit amusement from its audience.Les Vacances De M. Hulot is modestly funny and undeniably focused, zipping along with character, style, and an infectiously cheeky demeanour. The stylistic novelty of Tati's film initially feels like it's going to be a trawl through cause-and-effect comedy, but emerges as something totally different and eminently more worthwhile. It's more than an exercise in hazard perception: Les Vacances De M. Hulot is a piquant jaunt through tetchy social terrain, exhibiting all of the hallmarks of an early Charlie Chaplin picture, and packing more than enough of the punch.