Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953)

This one is in a class by itself. A "silent" talkie (yes; there's Ray Milland's The Thief, but that was contrived) with no discernible plot.

M. Hulot arrives at a modest vacation resort and becomes involved in all sorts of activities one usually finds in such places. But Hulot is an innocent, in the Medieval idea of innocence, and thus remains unaware of the havoc he may create.

Possible minor spoilers.

At one point, Hulot is invited to play tennis. He's shown a tennis racquet, which he apparently has never handled before. He notices a movement someone makes to display the racquet, and his innocence, thinks it's part of the way one handles the sports implement. He even carries this over later to table tennis! Later, at the beach, Hulot is trying to hide, but the taffy on a taffy stretcher makes him break cover periodically to save the unattended candy from falling to the sand. This is something the audience can sympathize with while laughing at the Gallic frugality of it all.

Most who have seen the film once will likely want to relive the vacation. One could do far worse than to do so.

Fmovies: "M. Hulot's Holiday" is one of those films that you either get or you don't. Jacques Tati was a fine physical comedian, in the same rank as Buster Keaton, and his Hulot character is perfect. If you like your comedy silent and beautifully observed, you will enjoy this film.

Watching M. Hulot play tennis creases me up every time I see it. The character's whole physical demeanour indicates that he is not wired up in the same way as other humans, even when he is standing still. You could put this oddball in any normal situation and expect him to raise a smirk.

Tati does not carry the whole film and there is enough gentle comedy from the other characters for you not to get bored with his silent shtick. M. Hulot does not overstay his welcome.

I guarantee that you will be humming the theme music for days afterwards. You won't have picked up any catchphrases from its eponymous star turn but it's an enjoyable, thoroughly French movie. If Steve Martin ever tries to remake it, he deserves to be shot.

People are in a hurry to go on vacation. They rush to the train depot. They speed down the pavement. They are all in an absurd hurry to relax and have no patience for slower traffic or animals. One such slower vehicle is a loud jalopy. It stops in front of a dog sunning itself in the middle of the road. The vehicle's owner honks the horn which sounds delightfully odd. The dog wags its tail but does not move. The horn sounds again and, once again, the dog wags its tail. Finally, the dog gets curious and goes over to the car. A hand reaches out from the car and gently pets the dog before easing the car onward to its destination. The owner of the car is Monsieur Hulot and he, too, is going on vacation. The fact that he is not in a hurry like his fellow vacationers can be attributed to the fact that Hulot lives life at an unhurried pace something that many of his acquaintances neither understand nor appreciate. Hulot is a man who prefers animals to things, play over strategy, summer relaxation over summer business, and freedom over rigid order (the headwaiter at the hotel where Hulot stays is constantly befuddled by this guest).

Monsieur Hulot's Holiday is a funny, touching, and humane look at a summer vacation. As viewers we follow Hulot, an earnest but clumsily unlucky man, through a few blissfully lazy summer days. We share his energy in play (tennis and ping pong). We feel his delight when dancing with a pretty girl at a masquerade party, where few adults have bothered to attend. We are painfully aware of Hulot's embarrassment as he dishes out abuse at a Tom who was not in fact peeping. We laugh, and cringe, at Hulot's valiant but doomed attempts to stop the escalation of an ill-timed fireworks display. Finally, at the film's conclusion, we sense the bittersweet quality with which Hulot ends his vacation, a vacation that has had humor and sadness, adventure and boredom, romance and dejection, in short a vacation full of life.

Director and Hulot star Jacques Tati does not always succeed in making me laugh (although when he does, I laugh heartily), but he always makes me smile. This week was my third go around for Monsieur Hulot's Holiday. I first watched the film a decade ago. I predict I will watch it another three times in the next ten years. I see too many films that offer nothing. Monsieur Hulot's Holiday always leaves me smiling, if somewhat sadly, from ear to ear.

Monsieur Hulot's Holiday fmovies. It doesn't matter if you're British, not French : all the holidays of our childhoods were like this. Clear, unbroken skies, relatively empty beaches, chaos at the railway station, half the people acting strangely, the other half unyieldingly the same. There are two points where I laughed uncontrollably for several minutes, and that's more than in most films these days ! The rest is beautifully observed and more quietly funny, although Tati's use of sound can get a little irritating. And, yes, there were a number of versions of the film as Tati added bits over the years : for instance, the 'Jaws' sequence was added after Spielberg's film was released.

"Monsieur Hulot's Holiday" (literally "The Vacation of M. Hulot")

For me, one sign of a great movie is when scenes are so unforgettable that they replay again and again in my mind. By that standard, "M. Hulot's Holiday" is the funniest movie of all time.

I saw this movie soon after it first appeared in the USA (1953) and thought at the time it would become a classic. Since then, the projector in my mind has replayed so many scenes so often that in the replaying it's grown even more hilarious. From time to time, when I see it again, each time I realize that -- as funny as the original is -- it has that rare quality of planting seeds that grow and blossom in my memory even more. Looking for the end on a tangled garden hose always replays M. Hulot's experience with the garden sprinkler.

There is very little plot beyond 'what I did on my summer vacation' -- but there doesn't need to be. Throughout the movie from time to time we see an elderly couple who stroll, observing the follies, eccentricities, normalities, of the behaviors of people on their summer vacations. This film's perspective is that we are similar to them, strolling, observing -- and as if the film's opening and close coincide with the beginning and end of the traditional French August vacation.

I've also seen Jacque Tati's "Mon Oncle" several times; while it's good, to me it's several magnitudes lower than 'Holiday.' I look forward to seeing "Playtime" with the sure knowledge that nothing can top "M. Hulot's Holiday." But as with all humor, different folk like different flavors.

This film's flavor is generally slightly dry with a few wet spots. Tati as director observes the usual, the commonplace, the well- meaning and then tweaks it just enough to either make you smile in self- recognition or sometimes snort milk out your nose. His Monsiuer Hulot is a gentle, chivalrous soul, always trying to be helpful although he inadvertently sows occasional chaos in his wake, as if "letting no good deed go unpunished." He's obviously a cousin of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.

ETA: I've just read Roger Ebert's review of "M. Hulot's Holiday"; it is superb and I recommend it to all:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/ apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19961110/REVIEWS08/ 401010328/1023 (REMOVE THE 2 SPACES)

The "Criterion" DVD version restores many portions that had previously been edited out and is by far the best version to see.

Enjoy.

Jacques Tati's first Monsieur Hulot feature is an enjoyable throwback to the days of silent comedy, with plenty of Tati's own style thrown in as well. The series of vignettes passes by at a well-timed pace, and for all that there is little in terms of plot development, it's not long at all before you feel as if you know not just Hulot but the other characters as well.

The vacation setting makes for a pleasant, leisurely atmosphere that makes a nice setting for Hulot and the others. Each scene has plenty of good-natured humor, and most of them also contain some amusing details that are hard to catch the first time you see it, making it well worth re-watching.

The opening sequences are easy to identify with, for all that the story occurs in another time and place, since some of the numerous snags faced by the vacationers are common experiences. Then, from the time that Hulot leaves the door open as he enters, there is a non-stop stream of good comic material that highlights Tati's own character.

By keeping the dialogue to a minimum, it emphasizes the visual gags (with occasional sound effects), some of which are also amusing yet wordless comments on human nature. Tati's style would have worked very well in silent comedy, yet he also has his own character, not an imitation of Keaton or of Chaplin or of anyone else. He made even better use of the character in "Mon Oncle", but this one well deserves to be remembered and enjoyed as well.