This really is not unpleasant, and I smiled a good deal (when I wasnt bored); but an hour in I knew I wouldn't watch this again after this viewing most likely, which is not the case with Tati's other Hulot films that are pretty masterful on the whole (think like, say, going from A Night at the Opera to Room Service with the Marx brothers and you may catch my drift).
Tati is so into having little bits of business that the movie often forgets to have... gags. Or, that is not always fair, perhaps it thinks the little bits of behavior are enough to sustain it, but without things like relatable characters it feels aloof. And while the whole overall irony is that they actually don't get to the auto show in Amsterdam due to the mishaps and ballyhoo, I suspect there would have been some rich chances for more satisfying plants and payoffs, or quick visuals (Hulot in the half-car is a hoot), than what we get with the misadventures and long stays at the office (to show how the camping car works) and at the farmhouse.
The multi-car nose picking (but not one booger eaten, come on, France), the multi-car melee (especially that one car's hood flapping away) and Hulot getting stuck up in the tree upside down trying his damndest to fix the outside hedge fixture on the house are the highlights and are funny. And there are little bits of grace notes that made me laugh a bit, like when Hulot steps into the guys office, turns around and knocks, the man at the desk says to come in, then he leaves and talks to the man at the other desk he just passed (!) Or the moment where that one barking dog in the countryside house is just a big softee.
Dare I say, as admirable as the effort is, Tati (on a post Playtime high) is a little too satisfied with his own flights of fancy. I think the problem too is not that a filmmaker is engaged more with behavior than story or plot - what would cinema be without Altman or Cassavetes if that was the case - but the larger context and people in it need to matter for that behavior to take shape, and this features... a slightly bumbling but not more or less than usual Hulot, and that one American woman (director of ALTRA, she doesn't even have a name), who seems stuffy and not that sympathetic for much of the time. I know, I know: tragedy in close up and comedy in long shot and so on, but there are limits.
Ok, one more nice part: The images of the cars driving fast and the chaos of the last ten minutes set to Charles Dumont's burst of rock and roll.
Tati is so into having little bits of business that the movie often forgets to have... gags. Or, that is not always fair, perhaps it thinks the little bits of behavior are enough to sustain it, but without things like relatable characters it feels aloof. And while the whole overall irony is that they actually don't get to the auto show in Amsterdam due to the mishaps and ballyhoo, I suspect there would have been some rich chances for more satisfying plants and payoffs, or quick visuals (Hulot in the half-car is a hoot), than what we get with the misadventures and long stays at the office (to show how the camping car works) and at the farmhouse.
The multi-car nose picking (but not one booger eaten, come on, France), the multi-car melee (especially that one car's hood flapping away) and Hulot getting stuck up in the tree upside down trying his damndest to fix the outside hedge fixture on the house are the highlights and are funny. And there are little bits of grace notes that made me laugh a bit, like when Hulot steps into the guys office, turns around and knocks, the man at the desk says to come in, then he leaves and talks to the man at the other desk he just passed (!) Or the moment where that one barking dog in the countryside house is just a big softee.
Dare I say, as admirable as the effort is, Tati (on a post Playtime high) is a little too satisfied with his own flights of fancy. I think the problem too is not that a filmmaker is engaged more with behavior than story or plot - what would cinema be without Altman or Cassavetes if that was the case - but the larger context and people in it need to matter for that behavior to take shape, and this features... a slightly bumbling but not more or less than usual Hulot, and that one American woman (director of ALTRA, she doesn't even have a name), who seems stuffy and not that sympathetic for much of the time. I know, I know: tragedy in close up and comedy in long shot and so on, but there are limits.
Ok, one more nice part: The images of the cars driving fast and the chaos of the last ten minutes set to Charles Dumont's burst of rock and roll.