M. Hulot's Holiday
Charming French comedy pushes gentle humor

And now let us talk about Monsieur Hulot. Especially let us discuss him within the context of his peculiar holiday, and the film made about it.

This is one of the strangest films I've ever tried to review, and I hesitate to use the word "strange" because it might put the wrong context into your head. "Donnie Darko" is strange; "Mulholland Drive" is strange; please don't get hung up on the word strange in this context.

What makes "M. Hulot's Holiday" so strange is that really it seems so ordinary. Rarely have I seen a film so utterly unconcerned with meeting any of the usual audience expectations. It is "deliberately paced" and is often distracted by little asides and grace notes. As such, it is full of surprises that come in small, refreshing little doses, like biting into a piece of chocolate and then discovering an unexpected something extra: a hint of orange cream, or subtle mint. There is no attempt in the film to push small laughs into becoming bigger laughs, none of the usual machinations that go into building a gag, then trying to close it with a topper. In the filmic world of "M. Hulot's Holiday," the small gag is sufficient, and director Jacques Tati seems completely content with building cumulative laughs rather than orchestrating a series of comic set pieces.

Because the film takes place at a seaside resort, an ocean metaphor seems appropriate. The humor in the film gently laps at the shore rather than breaking in crashing waves.

Watching the film lazily yawn and stretch into action, I, as most viewers will, wondered when the central problem would be introduced, the MacGuffin, as Hitchcock called it, the quest for which would propel the film through its first, second and third act.

It took me awhile to realize that there was no Maguffin; "Holiday" has no real plot at all beyond a brief synopsis: Monsieur Hulot, a man whom I will attempt to describe later, goes on vacation at a seaside resort and unintentionally causes problems for other vacationers, but also occasionally, and equally unintentionally, jumpstarts some of them from an encroaching lethargy.

Made in 1953, M. Hulot's Holiday would easily work as a silent movie, except for the fact that the intricate sound design is an essential part of the film: M. Hulot's car endlessly sputtering and backfiring; the thuummmp-thuummp of the hotel's dining room door swinging open and closed, and a charming bit of cool cosmopolitan jazz that plays in numerous variations throughout several scenes are just a few of the recurring sound motifs.

Although there are several lines of dialogue in the film, none of them are very important at all. No one has a real conversation of any weight, and Tati seems more interested in the human voice as part of his sound design rather than for the value of the words spoken, which are generally no more than polite banalities.

All film is magic: cinema is the art of illusion. "Holiday's" illusion comes in the form that outwardly it seems so simple when, in reality, it is a complex film; only after a while do all the various forms of trickery come to light. I watched the film through and I admit I was rather puzzled by it; I wasn't entirely sure I saw the point. But -- and here is the strange part -- I also knew absolutely that I couldn't dismiss it the way a film like "White Chicks" can easily be swept away.

The instant the film was over, I promptly hit "play" on the DVD and watched it through again. And you know what? Gradually, ever so gradually, I understood it completely. So now you may ask, "then what does it all mean?"

And I must answer back: I have no idea.

I don't think it's a movie that's meant to be understood. But neither is it in any way obscure.

As Walt Whitman wrote, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself."

The answer to the film lies in deciphering the character of M. Hulot: half-visitor from another planet, half everyday Joe. Tall, ungainly and awkward (in that deceptively awkward way that only a brilliant physical comedian could convey) Hulot manages to embody a number of traits, which is why I find him so hard to describe. The best I can come up with is that his body is often in the room long before his brain catches up with him. At other times, however, he seems perfectly fine and very aware of his surroundings, though being aware of them doesn't necessarily mean he fully understands them.

I found it impossible to imagine a backstory for such a person, nor could I imagine what he could do for a living. He seems completely inept at everything, and yet he must be doing something right, even if it is only to keep himself at a level of happiness sufficient to fulfill his own modest needs. There's no doubting, for instance, that he is the proud owner of the world's crappiest car, but he seems completely unaware of the fact of its crappiness and he's more than willing to offer a ride in it to other hotel guests.

As I watched the film, I often found myself a little irritated with Hulot, with his kind of hapless befuddled cluelessness: Dude! Just carry your suitcase into the hotel and close the door! How hard can it be? But in the interweaving time between watching and writing this review, I remember the character more fondly. He certainly means no one any harm, and certainly does nothing to merit a lasting dislike. What does it say about a person who can harbor a dislike for someone who is essentially harmless? Not cool, man.

Tati embodies all the many contradictions of Hulot's persona perfectly. It's one of those portrayals that transcends the notion that a character is being acted. Tati makes no false moves in the performance because he IS Hulot. And he does it deftly while incorporating several comic moves that are so perfectly timed that you don't even realize until afterward that it even was a bit, a stunt, that was, of course, very carefully planned. Only an exceptionally gifted physical performer could capture the elegance of Hulot's clumsiness, his walk, like a speeded up stumbling Frankenstein lurch, as if Hulot never can quite catch up to his center of gravity.

The comedy in the film is strange, too. Personally, I chuckled a lot all the way through, but never got swept up in any belly laughs as I've heard reported from other viewers. But now, at a remove of a few days from the viewing, I find myself suddenly remembering little bits from the movie: Hulot's unique tennis serve, his obsession with the gravity-fed taffy pull, or the way he occasionally pops his head out of his hotel room window like a bug-eyed bird taking a look around. I remember these bits and suddenly burst out laughing, while people around me wonder if I'm slightly deranged.

But perhaps most notable of all is Tati's uncynical eye toward the human race. The film is full of marvelous observational bits, and brief elegant tableaus of humans caught in the act of doing literally nothing. Very few directors nowadays have the patience to include a shot for no other reason than that they simply seemed to enjoy the way someone was sitting and reading a newspaper. Many of the comic moments are derived from these observations, and I found Tati's perspective to be very refreshing. The humanistic touches were a restorative to me, for I myself am increasingly appalled by the human race.

This film also is interesting from a genealogical standpoint. You can see how it inspired many filmmakers and comedians to follow. Terry Jones of the Monty Python troupe introduces the film on the Criterion DVD, and I could see many ties between Python films like "Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian" and "Holiday." Tati stages a lot of his comic bits not in the foreground, but in the background, so too with Jones' staging of some scenes in the Python films. And surely John Cleese's "Fawlty Towers" character owes something to the simmering proprietor of the hotel in "Holiday." And to raid the Python comparison yet again, much of the gentle humor of "Holiday" reminded me of Michael Palin's PBS travelogues. Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean character also owes a lot to Hulot, though there are worlds of differences between Bean and Hulot.

In the end, what are we to make of M. Hulot and his eponymous holiday? What a strange delightful little movie it is; I'm sorry it took me so long to discover it. Considering that I've seen several thousand movies, I'm surprised that I missed it all these years. I've read some comments and reviews that would have Tati presenting Hulot as some unknowingly wise guru, but I don't think that is Tati's intention. Hulot is too clueless and bumbling for anyone to emulate per se; he truly seems confused about a lot of things, and often unaware of how he fits in with other people. A lot of people probably feel a bit like Hulot at times, but Hulot's saving grace is a most refreshing lack of pretension. He's so out of the loop that he probably doesn't even notice the pretension of others.

Ultimately, I think Tati's message to the human race is this: stop taking yourselves so damn seriously. I was humbled to think that this gentle comedy was made less than a decade after the most horrendous war in history; a war perpetrated by men who took themselves so very earnestly and seriously that the whole world paid an enormous price and more than 60 million people died.

How much better for the world and the human race it would have been had all those self-serious morons instead acknowledged their inner-Hulot, admitted that they were every bit as clueless as every other poor soul on the planet, and taken the time to contemplate and appreciate the other humans around them.

This review is of the version contained on the Criterion DVD "M. Hulot's Holiday" which also contains an early Tati short film "Soigne Ton Gauche"