Trafic (1971)

This is certainly not an unpleasant movie to watch but for a comedy it's just too much lacking in its fundamental required ingredients.

Jacques Tati movies are all always being very subtle. Too subtle for my taste. It really takes its time to set up its comical moments, that often fall flat. There is just not an awful lot happening in this movie and comical-wise its surely lacking. Luckily the movie still has a pleasant, fun sort of atmosphere, which still made me enjoy watching this movie. And Tati movies are often movies you just have to watch, rather than paying too much attention for any of its story or acting in it.

This movie was initially intended to be made with the collaboration of Dutch Oscar winner Bert Haanstra. I had never realized this before but Tati and Haanstra were actually two film-makers that were very much alike with their style and approach of film-making, with a big difference that I like Haanstra way better than Tati. Both are being subtle and observant with their movies but Tati movies often feature slapstick humor, while Haanstra movies are more comical in its subtle observance's of real human behavior and its nature. He was also a director that got best known and got most critical acclaim for his documentaries. So while Tati movies are all being forced and staged, Haanstra movies are more realistic with its approach and therefore its subtlety also works out better. You can definitely tell which sequences in this movie got done by Bert Haanstra but you obviously have to be familiar with his work to recognize it. Appereantly he and Jacques Tati did not get along very well, or they had some creative differences so Haanstra left the project before it finished.

It's the last movie to feature the Monsieur Hulot character, from Tati. A comedy slapstick character that got portrayed by Jaceques Tati himself, in a handful of movies, over the decades. I never was too impressed with the character but he still had his biggest successes with it and his movie "Mon oncle" even won an Oscar for best foreign picture, while Tati himself also got nominated once, for his writing on the other Monsieur Hulot movie, "Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot". The character however never really plays the main part in his movies and they focus more on the events and surroundings around him, while often being a social commentary as well.

You can definitely call this movie the least original Monsieur Hulot movie, in terms of its creativity. Guess that Tati really ran out of good ideas and had sort of lost his touch, also after taking some financial blows with his previous movies. You can often see the comical moments in this movie coming from miles away and when they hit, they certainly don't hit as strong and funny as you would hope and perhaps also would expect.

Certainly not an unpleasant movie to watch and Tati's subtlety isn't as annoying as is the case with some of his other movies but for a comedy it's still surely lacking in some good strong humor.

6/10

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Fmovies: I enjoyed this film after I figured out that it was 'not' a comedy! This is static art, sort of, but more like mime, the kind of mime that is intended to make you laugh, in order to get your attention, in order to be what it actually wants to be, sentimental, cranky, entertaining without seeming to be willing to admit that the whole point is a cry to 'look at me', the same desire as is at the base of every film, but this film's intention is less well disguised, maybe intentionally, maybe the evident vulnerability is in fact the attractiveness of the piece.

At some point I stopped following the dialog, and started 'watching' the movie, like a painting, one of those paintings on a curtain that keeps going on and on (what are they called? something 'dromes'). It may seem too explicit, the human hands mimicking the windshield wipers, et al, but if you can stop seeing the literalness, then there is something there, or at least there would have been in 1971, which I remember so well, driving the autobahn, tooling through the circles at 100 clicks, watching the colors go by.

This is a slow comedy - the best way to enjoy it is to invite some friends over, put some nice wine or beer plus something to eat on the table and let the "story" unfold on a big screen (Tati's compositions are worth the big screen, even if the film stock is of low quality). Some of the scenes resemble car ballets! "Trafic" satirizes man and his obsession with fetish #1, the car, but it does so in a very nice way, not condemning or condescending, more like a nature documentary showing the behaviour of some strange species. The comedy is very close to Buster Keaton's, at its center technological gadgets, slapstick and social interactions slipping into the absurd. My favourite scene might be the one where some mechanics are repairing the car while watching a live broadcast from the moon (yep, the movie is that old) and begin imitating the low-gravity motions of the astronauts. It's rarely laugh-out loud but it's always inducing smiles! Highly recommended if your attention span is up to it.

Trafic fmovies. Jacques Tati's final film shows his frustrations with modern progress, and car congestion in particular. Suffice it to say that on a trip from Paris to Amsterdam every possible problem a car could encounter short of absolute destruction is suffered by poor Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati) and his traveling group. The humor and pacing of the film is very French; that is, a bit slow to American sensibilities. Regardless, the film is oddly compelling even when nothing more than a traffic jam is seen. The gags are sometimes hilarious. Watching this English-dubbed video on a TV is a frustrating experience, since one suspects that it would be much more interesting on the big screen (because of the somewhat monotonous nature of the images), which is not an option. A worthwhile watch, but definitely not TV-friendly. Not Tati's most accessible film.

It takes about half an hour for this film to warm up, but once it gets going, it is a great watch. As the fourth entry in Tati's M. Hulot series, the film is not quite as good as the two previous entries, 'PlayTime' and 'Mon Oncle', but it is still a fine film on its own, with not only amusing puns but also interesting satirical elements once again. Like with the previous two films, 'Trafic''s jokes owe a lot to the way in which the shots are set up, and in general Tati does a fine job visualising the material. Some shots appear to lack meaning or thematic motivation, but in general they help to flesh out the humour at technology. It is also interesting how there is a distinct lack of close-ups until the end. Everything going on is so interesting that one wants to look closer, but Tati places the viewer at a distance. The jokes are often funnier because we cannot see the finer details, and this is perhaps Tati saying something in the way of that if we distance ourselves we can see humour that we might miss otherwise if we try to examine everything too closely. As usual, the music used is excellent too, fitting in well with the on-screen action. Overall, the film does not work quite as well as 'PlayTime' and 'Mon Oncle', but there is little reason to regard it as an inferior entry - just a lesser entry, perhaps.

Jacques Tati attempts to drastically transform his alter ego for the final installment of the Hulot series, and naturally you can't blame him (one being that this comes after the financial disaster of Playtime, but especially because of the fact that he has added dimensions to Hulot in every film) but in most respects, Traffic is considerably stunted. It's still quite good, but a serious disappointment after Holiday, Oncle, and Playtime, which after ascending in genius and brilliance, there would be no place to go but down.

Traffic has the most conventional plot of the entire series - there's a set goal (getting the Altra car to the convention) - but rather than making the film more accessible, it only makes it more alien. All the Hulot films are blithely and happily adrift, propelled only by its jokes and reoccurring characters, but in the case of having a clear goal in mind, the deliberate slow pacing begins to weigh the film down. Because we are anticipating their arrival at the car show, throughout the movie we wonder what's in store and the build-up creates impatience, rather than the usual relaxation. If Tati was going for accessibility and conventionality, why didn't he employ a faster, three-act structure?

It's unfortunate to see gone the Hulot of old who was content on just walking around for days; in Trafic he's constantly running around doing busy work (he's on screen for nearly half the movie but actually doesn't do much of anything noteworthy). Like in the other films, he never knows what to do with himself and the world doesn't know what to do with him, but in Trafic, the problem is that this is a world Hulot created: he designed the Altra and it is he who wants to get it to the car show. He is imposing himself on the world, rather than the world that is crashing down on him and him fighting back, so the gags and observations aren't as pure or natural.

The stops the mini-caravan makes and the exploration of new roadside towns are perfect opportunities to bring back the old Hulot, but Tati seems almost afraid to let the world come to Hulot on their own terms. Scenes like two kids playing a beautiful tune on an acoustic by a lake or Hulot arriving at a convenience store feel like set-ups for great scenes which were left on the editing room floor.

I still really enjoyed the movie (there are some inspired visuals and Hulot is Hulot; it's always great to see him on the screen) but these were specific negative points I thought were worth bringing up.

6/10