M. Hulot’s Holiday – Criterion Collection
Description
Pipe-smoking Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati’s endearing clown, takes a holiday at a seaside resort where his presence provokes one catastrophe after another. Tati’s wildly funny satire of vacationers determined to enjoy themselves includes a series of precisely choreographed sight gags involving dogs, boats and firecrackers. The first entry in the Hulot series is a masterpiece of gentle slapstick.Amazon.com essential video
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. –Tom Keogh
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when Mr. Hulo drops a pitcher and it bounces back up. Then he drops another glass and it shatters…whoop-dee-doo! I don’t have to say more; that sums the whole thing up! The End! Hope you enjoyed it…NOT!
Rating: 1 / 5
M. Hulot’s Holiday – Criterion Collection
I am sorry that I do not have the same enthusiasm as the other reviewers. I am French and I teach French at the High School level. I will not show this movie to my students as it would bore them to death. If you suffer from insomnia, this is the perfect remedy.
Rating: 1 / 5
M. Hulot’s Holiday – Criterion Collection
I simply spent time watchnig this French response to a Chaplin-style but non-silent motion picture.
Maybe, it was a top at the timing of the making.
Rating: 1 / 5
M. Hulot’s Holiday – Criterion Collection
shouldn’t a “masterpiece” of comedy be … i don’t know … funny?
Rating: 2 / 5
M. Hulot’s Holiday – Criterion Collection
Having never seen a Tati film in my 40 something years, I was probably expecting too much from this 1950′s French comedy. It certainly has its merits. There are some lovely visual gags, which are very clever and funny as well, together with a set of characters who develop with the film.
I found that at 83mins it dragged a bit and whilst the jazzy music theme was great the first time I heard it, after the theme had been repeated about a dozen times it began to get on my nerves. Tati himself was undoubtably a talented visual comedian, and if he had been working 30 years earlier, before the introduction of sound would probably have been a bigger star. If I had seen this film when I was very young I’m sure that it would have made a lasting impression on me (like Laurel & Hardy) and I would have rated it much higher.
As it is, I probably need to see it again to fully appreciate it. Then it may get four stars.
Rating: 3 / 5
M. Hulot’s Holiday – Criterion Collection