Although I can find obliviousness (cluelessness) funny (whereas it is very rare for me to find drunken antics amusing), the supposed "slapstick classic" from 1953, "Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot" (Mr. Hulot's Vacation) tried my patience. Written, directed, and starring Jacques Tati (né Tatischeff in 1909, Tati carried the character on in "Mon Oncle" and "Playtime") in the title role, it was shot in crisp black-and-white by Jacques Mercanton and Jean Mousselle, who had also shot Tati's 1949 "Jour de fête." There is little (if any) camera movement, but the compositions are generally well-planned for what will happen.

I like the first ten minutes, before the gangly Hulot emerges from his ramshackle old car (a 1924 Hamikar, though I couldn't distinguish it from a soap-box racer). The drive to the seaside resort through the French countryside is lovely, and the dog that refuses to get out of the car's path in a village is amusing.

Upon arrival at the beach hotel (which is called literally that: Hotel De La Plage), Hulot begins annoying the other guests by opening (and leaving open) the door, which unleashes gale-force wind in the lobby, where most of the guests are congregated. This is followed, over the course of the movie, by tracking tar (or paint) in, playing music so loud that it disturbs the other guests, crawling around searching for a ping-pong ball (during which he turns a card player who, not lacking in obliviousness of his own!—plays a card on the table that had been behind him, disrupting both games), etc.

He manages to break a kayak in two. Folded back (with him in it, floundering), the two halves are mistaken for a shark. A heavy backpack makes him roll (off-camera) back down the hill above the resort, etc.

Two of the three bits I liked best were both shown in Monty Pythoner Terry Jones's celebratory 3.5-minute introduction: a wet spare tire picking up leaves and then picked up as a wreath for a funeral (in which Hulot joins a receiving line), and the climactic fireworks. The third is Hulot's tennis serve that none of the three experienced players can return. Although it only lasts an hour and a half, I think the movie runs on too long (and seemingly the original version ran 114 minutes), yet I thought that the tennis sequence ceased before being fully developed, while many other bits were inadequately set up (why was he in the shed with the firecrackers?

The visual compositions are excellent, but it is one of the many mysteries of the Oscar history that "M. Hulot's Holiday" won a Best Writing, Story and Screenplay (for 1955, presumably it was not released in the US until then). There's a story? I only saw episodes of a week (or summer) at the beach hotel. Not all involve M. Hulot. There are some young boys' pranks (the best involving a magnifying glass—but no ants) and a usually promenading older married couple, the male (René Lacourt) of whom takes and casts aside the "pretty shells" his wife (Marguerite Gérard) finds and gawks at most every female other than his wife.

And there is the belle of the resort, Martine (Nathalie Pascaud in her only film role), who is courted by many, but has eyes only for M. Hulot (another actor-director's fantasy?). He dances with her at a masked ball, but is no more aware of her lusting after him than he is of how he annoys most everyone else.

The movie begins with the drive to the sea and ends with farewells (including two who seek out Hulot, after he is ignored by the main group of departing vacationers). Nothing develops in between, and the vacationers will return again the next year and the next and the next.

The Criterion DVD has clear images and sound. There is little dialogue (Tati provided an English-language version, or the French version is available with or without subtitles. Neither the 2.5-page essay in the booklet, nor Jones mention the disparity in running time (which I therefore infer that Tati himself cut).

It also includes the 12.5-minute René Clement's "Soigne Ton Gauche "("Watch Your Left"), directed by René Clement (Forbidden Games, Purple Noon) in 1936 with Tati as a day-dreaming farm worker. It has a LOL moment in the boxing ring.

Dialogue matters not at all in that, and there are not the elaborate sound gags of "M. Hulot." I am tempted to think that the (nearly) silent out-of-it characters are what make some people invoke the great Hollywood stars Keaton, Chaplin, and Lloyd. Keaton and Lloyd undertook far more daring stunts and the set-ups of comic bits in the movies of that triumvirate would not be called "perfunctory" as Tati's mostly are. All four share obliviousness—also with Mr. Bean and Inspector Clouseau, ce n'est pas? The obliviousness to ordinary expectations and realities of Keaton, Chaplin, and Lloyd seem to me to endanger themselves, whereas most of the bad effects of M. Hulot's obliviousness (and Mr. Bean's and Inspector Clouseau's) is borne by others.

Both the DVD box and Jones say that "Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot" won the top prize at Cannes, so I thought I could throw a review at Void99's Cannes writeoff (as well as continuing my week of "French finds" for Ifif1938 passing 400), but, according to IMDB, it did not receive any awards at Cannes. The top prize for 1953 was won by Henri-Georges Clouzot's hyper-tense "Le Salaire de la peur" (The Wages of Fear) and for 1954 (the first time the Grand Prize became the Palme d'or) by Kinugasa Teinosuke's gorgeous "Jigokumon" (Gate of Hell).


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up to Age 4