Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot -- a personal favorite...
I think one needs to be "older" to appreciate this movie. It
strikes a tender nerve of nostalgia, a perfect combination of humor
and sadness. I never get tired of watching this one...
n.b. Roger Ebert's review, amazingly, is straight on -- he gets this one.
_____________
Go Go Gojira!
Hang on a minute Lone Wolf... I don't believe that one needs to be "older" to appreciate LES VACANCES... I first saw this film when I was about 12 and my sister was even younger. Our mother showed it to us and it was love at first sight. Back then it was just the humour that I enjoyed, as well as the infectious musical score. But now having seen the film recently as part of the TATI festival thats been touring the world, I enjoyed it for different reasons, especially now knowing a bit more about the common themes that seem to run through all of TATI's films.
PLAYTIME is a close second favourite, again liking it for different reasons with each viewing, especially for the Blake Edwards "The Party"-esqe restaurant scene near the end of the film, and again for its music. I do agree with you however when you say that LES VACANCES.. "strikes a tender nerve of nostaglia", although I wonder if I can be nostalgic for a time in which I was never born??
Also, if you like the music of his films, there is a CD of the original music and dialogue taken from the four best known films. I can also recommend the TATI REMIX ALBUM which has again taken the original music and dialogue and remixed them with a new, contemporary feel. This does sound like a pretty crass venture, but listening to them I can tell that they've been done with love and affection for the source material, and have maintained a sence of simplicity that is important to his films - a perfect mellow, chilled recording!! I think it was released as part of the same film festival. Its the perfect way to introduce a contemporary audience to these films!!
Nathan,
You're absolutely right. My five-year-old loves this movie -- the sight gags make him crack up. He sees a completely different movie than I do, which is fantastic. I see it through a jaundiced eye of nostalgia, and my wistful longing for my innocent youthful view of the World. But, when we watch it together, he helps the old man to laugh.
_____________
Go Go Gojira!
I rented this one today, because Rowan Atkinson said he got his influence from it. Maybe I'm just stupid, but I really didn't get it. Maybe it was faulty subtitles or something, but I didn't find it funny except for a couple things here and there. I thought most of the humor was pretty lame. I mean if you're gonna do slapstick I think it should be something that is blatatly funny.
For example the car misses a turn. How is that funny. It's not funny.
And if their was any plot to this I sure missed it. Then again all I saw was like the first 45 minutes or so, because it got too boring for me.
I can sort of see the similarities with Mr. Bean but Bean is better in the sense that the gags are A : Funny and B: Quite obvious, and don't leave you staring at the screen thinking that was so boring I didn't I was supposed to laugh.
Oh well, to each his own I guess.
[deleted]
I am truly sorry that you are/were unable to enjoy this film. It is almost one of a kind. I am fuzzy on the missed turn episode. Do you mean where he ends up crashing a funeral?
shareYes and his spare wheel gets sticky, covered in leaves and is mistaken for a funeral wreath and ... :) I think this comedy is way to slow for people in this MTV-10sec-pr-clip stressful age. Sad, -because if people could relax and let the atmosphere of the movie creep into their minds they would get a wonderfull experience but i am afraid modern audience expects "Dumb Bumber" an "Ace Venture" tempo...
shareYes, it is sad indeed! I am of the conviction that N. American culture has been going to Hell in a hand basket since the invention of TV.
shareI agree with jry 18's sentiments exactly - except I only made it through the first 15 minutes. I understand now why the French love Jerry Lewis so much. Compared to this, he is the greatest comic who ever lived.
I no longer trust TCM's 4 star reviews - this is the third dud I've watched that was rated highly by them.
My five-year-old loves this movie
Ebert's review is indeed straight on.
I'm only 32 and really enjoy Tati's movies. Jour de Fête and Mon Oncle are just as funny as this one imo.
But this movie has that typically French-coast atmosphere, which reminds me of my holidays at the beach when I was a child. I always enjoyed those the most, because life was always so simple for those two/three weeks a year.
The sadness for me always was the end of the holiday, returning to normal life again.
I was six when I first saw this movia and loved it, now I watch it once or twice a year and it's every time as entertaining as it was the first time.
PS. Comparing Mr. Bean to Tati should be a crime. And it probably is.
We watch this every year before going on holiday - the children have loved it since they were tiny and still love it as cynical teenagers and the crocodile boat cracks us up every year. I still see something new each time I see it. By contrast, Mr Bean makes me want to cringe(and get off the plane that is inevitable playing it him over and over again).
shareCompairing Bean to Tati is like comparing The Three Stooges to Laurel and Hardy. But Bean admired Tati and Laurel and Hardy, and Tati admired Laurel and Hardy. The Three Stooges were the ones considered crass and it is interesting that it is the 'meaner' out of the lot that is the most famous today. If you will notice there was not a mean bone in the body of the film - i.e. the ice cream not falling off the cone and saving the taffy from the fate of the sand. There was a time when people, mostly born at the turn of the 20th century, just had fun and it didn't have to be at the expense of another or had to involve in-your-face sex.
shareIt is a crime to compare Mr. Bean and Tati. Mr. Bean is 100 times better.
share[deleted]
Well, it is well-known that people have differing tastes. I just loved Mr. Hulot's but I am so-so on Mr. Bean. Cheers.
shareMr. Bean is ok but ever since I saw Black Adder, I don't really like him all that much anymore. He just seems too childish, somehow. As for Hulot - it's been a while since I last saw that movie but I still remember that I was in my teens when I first saw it and that I absolutely loved it. Maybe I should get the DVD.
shareI was 24 when I saw it the first time (1959/1960) and loved it. I now have it on VCR and still love it. DVD comes next.
shareIMHO this is the most funny of all Tati made,I found it hilarious,I loved it.
As a small child I saw Traffic on a Saturday afternoon,that movie impressed me so much as a child,the moonlanding scene ,the duck imitation,the car with too many gadgets,Mr Hulot's walk,the traffic accident(should i go on),so damn funny.
Traffic,Mon Oncle,Playtime are visual better,but I really think Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot is the most funny one.
For me Mon oncle is the best of Tati's movies. maybe it has something to do with my life or my memories as a child but I found a lot of fun and emotion in this movie and I really enjoy seeing it again. Particularly the children playing pranks and the doughnuts vendor. The wall separating the modern city and the old town, the guys demolishing the town at the end, as a world disappearing, the bird singing when the windows reflects the sun, all is not funny but it is a great movie.
Les vacances is just a funny movie. More laughs than later tati's films but not the most hilarious I've ever watched. Les vieux de la vieille is more hilarious, just to give one example of the same age and style.
Oddly enough, I liked Playtime, mostly because of the visual artistry and because of Tati's overall vision, and this one left me cold. It is just two hours of Tati pointing at Hulot going "HAHA LOOK HOW AWKWARD HE IS HE'S TURNING ALL THOSE PAINTINGS CROOKED EVEN WHEN HE TRIES TO FIX THEM HAHA!" and then expecting us in the final minutes to feel some sense of kinship with him. It was a film without a point, as Tati seems to have little to say about anything, only setting up more and more milieu and sight gags. This isn't really a crime, as the Marx Brothers made their living off of that, but the difference is that while the Marxes didn't have a destination, the journey was fun to watch. I couldn't say that about this film at all, though maybe the problem was with me and not the film.
Another minor quibble I have is with the random camera movements. At some points it's like Tati doesn't trust us to figure out what's going on and he has to zoom in to drum the gag into our heads. Other times, he lets things be and leaves it up to us, which I thought was better. Still confused me a little, though.
Overall I gave this a 6/10, but that's of course my opinion and not my judgment.
Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head."
Saw it when I was nine; now I'm 64 and just watched it again. Still hilarious, but you have to do some mindscrewing to readjust your tempo to 1953. Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson) was obviously inspired by this, and I personally prefer Tati; although some of his other stuff is just too French for us to get it. This is a minor masterpiece, as there were few movies from France in the 50s, but what there was were pretty good. 'Jeux Interdicts,' 'Red Balloon.'
shareIndeed, it's a lovely little film. Not a side-splitting "laugh out loud" comedy, but one of nostalgia, lightheartedness and warmth. Not to say that some of the gags aren't hilarious in their own right, a good number of them are brilliantly thought out and executed, but the majority of the humour has me smiling at its charm and deceptive simplicity more than anything else. There is so much affection for the quirks of human behaviour and life's simple pleasures in this film and if one is willing, then it has the magical ability of transporting you to those times where you went on holiday and every care in the world seemed to evaporate for that short period of bliss and innocence. I think a great number people can relate to that feeling and the film captures it with such fondness and poignancy.
This must be where pies go when they die.
I totally agree. This is a sheer delight from start to finish. Somehow, though, it's not fair, because the French gave us Jacques Tati and we gave them Jerry Lewis. That's just not right. Tati is far more creative, talented and funny than Lewis ever was!
share