Despite only having made a small handful of films, Jacques Tati remains one of the most important filmmakers of his generation, with his career both predating and occurring concurrently with the French New Wave, a movement that may not have been directly related to Tati, but was undeniably influenced, at least in terms of taking advantage of the more loosely-structured methods of filmmaking established by the director. He is most known for his creation of Monsieur Hulot, the clumsy but lovable everyman who was a character in many of Tati’s films, with the director himself occupying the role in different capacities, Our introduction to Monsieur Hulot, or the film that saw his “birth”, as the prologue to the restored version of the film states, is Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (French: Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot), a vitally important piece of mid-century French filmmaking that remains amongst the director’s most essential works, and a cherished piece of cinema that continues to bewitch and astonish viewers to this very day. For all the dissent that has been layered on the director for making films that were more spectacles than actually fully-formed works of art, Tati was able to make something incredibly special with this film, carefully putting together a series of episodic moments in the life of the titular character (as well as many others), and presenting it to the viewer with exuberance, upbeat humour and an abundance of heart, which is really the primary difference between Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday and the several films that came about as a response to the pure magic committed to film by a director who had a profound understanding of how to make audiences laugh relentlessly.

When we think about the actual structure or the story being told, Tati wasn’t doing anything particularly revolutionary – there is very little here in terms of traditional filmmaking that we couldn’t find somewhere in the heyday of silent comedies, or efforts to bring slapstick from vaudeville to screens. Yet, there is something so special about what Tati is doing when putting this film together that strikes us as being more original than the pale imitations we’ve seen produced since. There are several key components to the success of this film that often don’t receive the credit they deserve, but are pivotal to immersing audiences in this world – primarily, we can see this in Tati’s style, where he is constantly drawing our attention to the smallest details in a scene – he establishes a particular moment, and gradually deconstructs it, on both the broadest level (where he employs some absolutely outrageous slapstick), or in terms of the minutiae, where something we may not have noticed previously in the scene (or even earlier in the film) suddenly returns in a way that is unexpected, but delightfully funny. Tati always relies on the element of surprise – despite being a relatively simple film in terms of the story it tells, or the execution of some very interesting ideas, we can’t ever really predict where it is heading, since the director depends on his ability to evoke certain sensations when we least expect it. It may seem conventional at a cursory glance, but Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday is far from standard, with the details that underpin the film being amongst its most memorable traits.

A good description of Tati’s films, and Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday in particular, is that he didn’t direct scenes, but rather composed landscapes. This is a good way of approaching his films, since it helps us understand both his intentions as a director, and his methods as a visual artist. This is very obvious in this particular film, since whether taking place on the gorgeous beaches along the French Riviera, in the upmarket hotel, or throughout the idyllic countryside, Tati is using physical space as a character all on its own, making sure to present these scenes in the most vivid detail available to him at the time. The concept of every frame of a film being a painting has rarely been more accurate than here, with every scene brimming with small details that tell as much of a story as the main premise that propels the film forward – it not only makes the first viewing such an engaging experience, but rewards those who return to this world, since we are suddenly not as focused on seeing what chaos will be caused by the clumsy Monsieur Hulot, allowing our eyes to wander to some other corner of the frame, where we find new details that we hadn’t noticed before, which only enriches our understanding of both the film, and Tati’s methods as a filmmaker. Even if we put aside the irreverent, hilarious comedy and just focus on the director’s style, we can see how absolutely brilliant his work is, and how beyond being a fantastic physical comedy, he was a filmmaker with a true gift for creating worlds, one where language and imagery blur together in incredible poignant ways, creating unforgettable landscapes, painted beautifully with words that don’t really matter on their own, and images that (in isolation), are not particularly memorable – but when put together, pure magic is sparked.

It’s well-documented that Tati was more concerned with physical space than he was written or spoken humour, which is why so much of his work hinges on his use of slapstick as a tool of evoking laughter – and it almost universally succeeds every time, because he knows how to show restraint. Drawing from a long lineage of slapstick films (which would only continue to grow, with Tati’s work being important in its subsequent development, especially in Europe), Tati avoids some of the most notable problems with this kind of comedy by not filling every seen with a neverending array of sight gags – there are hilarious moments scattered throughout the film, but the comedy ranges in intensity, with some being wildly outrageous, others more mildly amusing. The contrast allows the film to have a versatile tone, and avoid one of the primary problems that come with many other films made in this style, which is that the humour is always pitched to such an impossibly high level, all the laughter is contained to the first act, with audiences growing tired with the constant and unchanging style of comedy. The humour in Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday ebbs and flows, which is also helped considerably by Tati’s ability to step out of a scene – as we spoke about earlier, this film is all about establishing a particular landscape, and while being the central character and the anchor of the film, Monsieur Hulot is only one of many components of this character landscape. The director, admirably avoiding turning this film into a vanity project, doesn’t seem adverse to drawing attention to the other characters, giving them many moments that are just as funny as anything involving the main character. It gives the film not only a sense of diversity, but finds the humour within the ensemble, which is just as strong as anything Tati himself is doing in his capacity as the central character.

It is such a blessing that we have a film like Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday so readily available to us – Tati continued to tinker with it over the course of his career, finally editing a version that he found best matched his original intention in the late 1970s, which is the cut that has been most widely distributed, and is considered the definitive version. Watching his vision come to life through these stunning tableaux, and being able to see his unique brand of comedy in its most raw, primitive and brilliant form is absolutely wonderful, and makes this an immediate masterpiece of French cinema, a simple but effective comedy that has a surprising amount of depth – perhaps not in terms of the story itself, but the effort that went into its creation, which immediately makes it an exceptionally special film that should be celebrated as this incredibly rivetting comedy that never abates, flowing through different kinds of humour in a way that shows what a supremely gifted filmmaker Tati was, as well as demonstrating his keen skills as a comedian, his performance here being just as simple as the film around him, as well as matching it beat-for-beat in how it hints at some deeper kind of artistry lurking just out of sight. Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday is a truly wonderful voyage into the mind of a man who dedicated his life to his craft – and as our first encounter with the adorable Monsieur Hulot, there are few better films that make as good a first impression for a recurring character than this. In both form and content, it’s an incredible piece of physical and technical filmmaking, and a truly extraordinary example of multilayered comedy that can both entertain and inspire viewers, if they’re willing to look for these fascinating components.