So, Christmas evening, I was looking for something to watch. I didn’t really want to go for a Christmas movie, and I had just finished a movie for the upcoming Stacker Countdown series (those start in January). Said movie was three hours long and a fairly serious drama. I wanted something that was basically the opposite of that, something kinda short and not to be taken all that seriously.
I settled for Monsieur Herlot’s Holiday, a 1953 French comedy from director/star Jacques Tati that introduced the world to his Monsieur Herlot character.
So, here’s the thing: there really isn’t anything like a plot to this movie. It’s more like a series of scenes, and the funny thing is, the opening is actually a couple title cards explaining that after its 1953 premier, Tati wasn’t quite satisfied and kept reediting the film off and on for the next decade or two. However, given the quality of the filmstock, every time he did this, he ended up damaging the print, so the movie I watched on HBO Max was basically the 2009 release where Tati’s final cut from the 70s that restored the damage he’d inadvertently caused to his own movie, with the title card explaining this was basically the movie Tati wanted it to be.
But that’s neither here nor there. As I said, there isn’t much of a plot, but what passes for one is that, in a French seaside vacation community, a bunch of people go for a vacation including the title character Monsieur Herlot. Herlot is a bit clumsy and generally well-meaning, but even though he does tend to screw things up and break things, he’s not the only one. There’s a lot of general absurdities going on that Herlot neither causes nor stops. He mostly exasperates things. Pretty much everyone here is a fool save perhaps a young woman named Martine (Nathalie Pascaud) who is staying with her aunt and seem to be there mostly because she’s pretty and the guys like to gawk at her.
In many ways, this movie is basically like a silent movie comedy. There is some spoken dialogue, but not much of it, and much of it is just for ambiance. Tati uses the same jazz score in different places, and many times just takes a leisurely long shot showing people doing vacation stuff while acting foolish. As I said, it almost doesn’t need Herlot to make things a bit ridiculous.
But Herlot is there, and he tends to make things worse for the most part while at the same time appearing to mean well. Surprisingly, even after so many of the things he does that causes destruction and confusion, the movie actually ends with other tourists giving Herlot their addresses and telling him to keep in touch. That small detail may have been what made the movie what it was. Many times the foolish boob will be driven away or seen as a nuisance. But since everyone here is also a bit of a fool, he mostly fits right in. The end result is a fun, plotless movie where every scene is mostly there to show some bit of comedy, often slapstick that doesn’t need translation.
Or the scene is there to check out Nathalie Pascaud as she goes about her day. That seems to be about the only reason she’s there, but regardless, this was a fun and funny movie.
Grade: A-
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