Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday is a key work of one of the supreme masters of French comedy, Jacques Tati. It is an astounding cornucopia of gags and sketches in which intellectual comedy seamlessly merges with all levels of slapstick. A motley group of noisy French holidaymakers have gathered at a seaside resort in Brittany. Amid them fumbles Monsieur Hulot (Tati), who in all his silence is the most expressive of all the characters in the film.
There is hardly any dialogue in Tati’s film and the little that is said is irrelevant. However, the sound track of Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday is central to the work. The film is in many ways sound comedy that revamps traditional comedy. The various grunts and noises fly around the peaceful milieu, the summer wind and kids’ shouts.
Tati’s characters are intentionally superficial, almost stereotypes – what they represent is more important than what they are. The almost anonymous protagonist, monsieur Hulot, becomes whole during the course of the film, giving significance to the insignificant and relevance to small things. Tati’s films is epithomy of pure, uninhibited joy, which encapsulates the finest traditions of French summer cinema (cf. later Rohmer) and the modern winds of Chaplin ja Keaton that reformed classic comedy with love and respect.
Lauri Timonen