Monsieur Hulot's Holiday

Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot) (1953)

Runtime: 89 minutes

Directed by: Jacques Tati

Starring: Tati, Nathalie Pascaud, Micheline Rolla, Lucien Fregis, Valentine Camax

From: Several French companies

Monsieur Hulot: Agent of Chaos?

Recently I realized my Criterion Channel subscription should be used more often; coupled that with another idea that I should finally try a Jacques Tati movie as the character of Hulot sounds like something up my comedic alley, and it only made sense to see the film that introduced Mr. Hulot.

There isn't too much of a plot and minimal dialogue. Instead, a modest seaside resort town in France is shown as the lead is on holiday. He drives a crappy (and obscure) 1920's French roadster, sometimes offering fellow vacation-goers a ride. Hulot is a tall, lanky and awkward human being who is on the oblivious side; I do understand the negative reviews. Aside from how the humor was done, the viewer could be irritated w/ this character.

While not every scene worked for me, there were enough laughs throughout this series of vignettes where this gets a nice rating from me. One key detail I noticed which hasn't been noted too often in the reviews seen with my eyes: Hulot seemed to be an Agent of Chaos. What I mean is that whenever he appeared he would not just cause havoc due to his actions... it seemed like his mere presence caused others in the vicinity to act batty. A few of the characters grew to hate him but even they weren't immune to that effect. Aside from the physical humor and sight gags, this also offered up satirical barbs against various members of the French middle class in post World War II society. It seemed like some of them had no fun even if they were accompanied by their family and they should have enjoyed what looked like a quaint and pleasant town to visit. It was not venomous stings, though; like everything else in Holiday, the critiques were presented in a breezy and pleasant matter. Also gentle is a jazz motif that is heard... perhaps a bit too often but at least I liked it.

Due in part to the unique way this was done, that helps in me giving this a high rating. In hindsight, seeing this (and in the future I'll check out more of Monsieur Hulot's adventures) helps explain why the French used to love Jerry Lewis. This easily compares to his The Bellboy-from 1960-and Monsieur Hulot's Holiday was a popular motion picture in its native country. It also reminds me that I should see some more of Jerry's work.