M. Hulot's Holiday

Forefather of Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean, Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot--a recurring character in several of his movies--is a blithely clumsy troublemaker, an insouciant twit who leaves uproar in his wake without being aware of it. Trying to describe this 1953 comedy is next to impossible except to say it is a series of vignettes at a vacation resort, with the distracted Hulot providing a lot of laughs. Tati directs, and in a way what that really means is that he composes this movie with a perfect eye and ear for the comic possibilities in everything: composition, lighting, minimal marble-mouth dialogue, certain sounds (a duck call, a door repeatedly opening and shutting). This is a superior work that ranks among all-time classic comedies

Mon Oncle

A comic masterpiece from director-star Jacques Tati (Playtime, Traffic), this 1958 film--Tati's first in color--reprises the carefree, oblivious title character from the director's hilarious international hit Mr. Hulot's Holiday. This time, the story finds Hulot, a self-involved twit on a constant collision with the physical world, grappling with 1950s-style progress. Visiting his sister and brother-in-law in their ultra-progressive household full of noisy gadgets and futuristic decor, Hulot inevitably has dust-ups with modernity, each one exceptionally funny. Taking a page from Buster Keaton's playbook, Tati also employs his trademark techniques with sound and production design to achieve the indefinable, comic genius of his films: the rhythmic clacking of footsteps, the cartoon-panel distance of his camera frame from the heart of the action. (Why are funny things funnier when seen from a few extra feet away?) Tati is one of the cinema's great treasures, and this movie is unforgettable.A comic masterpiece from director-star Jacques Tati (Playtime, Traffic), this 1958 film--Tati's first in color--reprises the carefree, oblivious title character from the director's hilarious international hit Mr. Hulot's Holiday. This time, the story finds Hulot, a self-involved twit on a constant collision with the physical world, grappling with 1950s-style progress. Visiting his sister and brother-in-law in their ultra-progressive household full of noisy gadgets and futuristic decor, Hulot inevitably has dust-ups with modernity, each one exceptionally funny. Taking a page from Buster Keaton's playbook, Tati also employs his trademark techniques with sound and production design to achieve the indefinable, comic genius of his films: the rhythmic clacking of footsteps, the cartoon-panel distance of his camera frame from the heart of the action. (Why are funny things funnier when seen from a few extra feet away?) Tati is one of the cinema's great treasures, and this movie is unforgettable.

Playtime