Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1953)
This is a gentle and likeable comedy, with Hulot a bumbling Everyman stand-in for whoever is watching him. (This may explain the curiously sad quality of the ending.) It's not exactly laugh-a-minute, but then Tati understands the mechanics of silent comedy to an idiot-savant degree (some of the best moments are when a punchline is expected and not delivered, i.e. the child with the two ice cream cones) and I think he was probably aiming for something more profound than mere hilarity. Like Videodrome or McCabe & Mrs. Miller, this is a film that grows in the memory. I'll have to see it once or twice more before I really understand how I feel about it, so consider the grade below strictly provisional.
Grade: B
This is a gentle and likeable comedy, with Hulot a bumbling Everyman stand-in for whoever is watching him. (This may explain the curiously sad quality of the ending.) It's not exactly laugh-a-minute, but then Tati understands the mechanics of silent comedy to an idiot-savant degree (some of the best moments are when a punchline is expected and not delivered, i.e. the child with the two ice cream cones) and I think he was probably aiming for something more profound than mere hilarity. Like Videodrome or McCabe & Mrs. Miller, this is a film that grows in the memory. I'll have to see it once or twice more before I really understand how I feel about it, so consider the grade below strictly provisional.
Grade: B
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