Seeing a Jacques Tati movie again is like visiting old friends: absence makes the heart grow fonder. As the awkward and innocent Mr. Hulot, Tati faces the complexities of modern life with absentminded detachment, never noticing how out of step he is from the rest of the world. He is, as his sister explains in the film, "vague", but it's precisely this air of agreeable confusion that appeals to his young nephew, who prefers the comforts of his uncle's ramshackle, traditional neighborhood over his own mechanized, sanitized, "all-communicating" house.
And where Hulot goes, havoc follows—through no fault of his own. Tati's bumbling comic alter-ego is too passive and benign to instigate anything resembling trouble, but he nevertheless manages to leave a trail of painless mayhem in his wake. Hulot is more a plaything of fate, in much the same way as Buster Keaton but on a more recognizably human level. And through him Tati was an astute, impartial observer of social idiosyncrasies, mocking our habits as gently as he mourned the passing of our traditions.
Some of the jokes are so casual they almost pass unnoticed, but each one has been painstakingly constructed and rehearsed, from the lightest chuckle to the largest belly laugh. In a brief but telling episode Hulot dislodges a small stone from the already crumbling wall separating the old neighborhood from the new, and with hardly a pause reaches down, embarrassed, to needlessly replace the loose chip.
The moment is over in an instant, but shows the subtlety with which Tati arranged every detail of his films. For Tati, inspiration was the result of long planning and hard work, and the effort here won him (deservedly so) an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
And where Hulot goes, havoc follows—through no fault of his own. Tati's bumbling comic alter-ego is too passive and benign to instigate anything resembling trouble, but he nevertheless manages to leave a trail of painless mayhem in his wake. Hulot is more a plaything of fate, in much the same way as Buster Keaton but on a more recognizably human level. And through him Tati was an astute, impartial observer of social idiosyncrasies, mocking our habits as gently as he mourned the passing of our traditions.
Some of the jokes are so casual they almost pass unnoticed, but each one has been painstakingly constructed and rehearsed, from the lightest chuckle to the largest belly laugh. In a brief but telling episode Hulot dislodges a small stone from the already crumbling wall separating the old neighborhood from the new, and with hardly a pause reaches down, embarrassed, to needlessly replace the loose chip.
The moment is over in an instant, but shows the subtlety with which Tati arranged every detail of his films. For Tati, inspiration was the result of long planning and hard work, and the effort here won him (deservedly so) an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.