Jacques Tati had an
astonishing run of success in the '40s and '50s with his puckish comedies Jour
De Fête, Mr.
Hulot's Holiday,
and Mon Oncle,
each of which reduced everyday human behavior to a set of clockwork actions,
easily gummed up. Then Tati gambled all his goodwill—and most of his
personal savings—on the 1967 comedy Playtime, for which he built an
elaborate set meant to replicate the sterile, officious city he felt Paris had
become. Playtime
is Tati's crowning achievement, simultaneously bleak, beautiful, and stunningly
choreographed. But it was a little too clean and reactionary for the shaggy '60s,
and its financial failure left Tati unable to work on such a grand scale again.
The same critics and
cineastes who were initially cool to Playtime were equally indifferent
to Trafic,
a more modest 1971 comedy featuring Tati's signature character Mr. Hulot as an
automotive engineer embarking on a calamitous cross-continent trip to an
Amsterdam auto show. Trafic is one of only five proper features (along with a
handful of shorts and TV specials) that one of France's greatest filmmakers
completed, which alone makes it worth seeing. But contrary to its reputation, Trafic is hardly a footnote to
Tati's career. Like Playtime, though less visionary, Trafic is a sly, low-key satire
about the state of modern Europe, and where its real soul resides.
Though the gags are a
little thinner and sparer than in previous Tati films—and though some of
them are as loud and vulgar as any of Disney's Herbie The Love Bug movies—there
are moments of whimsy and wonder that are pure Tati. It takes a Tati to
construct a montage of idle drivers picking their noses at red lights, or to
introduce an American PR flack who changes outfits every time she gets out of
her car, or to conceive a station wagon that doubles as a stove, shower, dining
room, and bed. Tati's humor is rooted in mime, and can be appreciated as dance
as much as comedy, but what made him a great filmmaker was his ability to
construct shots like the one in Trafic where a car window's reflection shows
vehicles zooming past each other at askew angles. Tati could always see what
others might've missed.
Key features: A comprehensive, entertaining two-hour
documentary about Tati's life and films, directed and narrated by his daughter
Sophie.