What to expect
Tati composes comedy across the whole frame and soundtrack, allowing doors, waves, furniture, engines, and distant conversations to share the joke. The 1978 rerelease is its own presentation history rather than a neutral stand-in for 1953.
How to ease in
Plot is deliberately slight. Let your eyes roam beyond Hulot and listen for sounds whose source is elsewhere in the frame; a gag may begin before the apparent subject notices it.
Heads-up
Monsieur Hulot arrives at a seaside hotel and gently disrupts the routines by which everyone else is trying to enjoy a proper holiday.
Hulot rarely seems to own the joke he has started. I enjoy watching it travel through doors and tables until an entire hotel has joined a composition nobody meant to conduct.
Open the note ↓
Hulot rarely seems to own the joke he has started. I enjoy watching it travel through doors and tables until an entire hotel has joined a composition nobody meant to conduct.
— Momo
Credits & versions
- Cast
- Jacques Tati — Monsieur Hulot · Nathalie Pascaud — Martine · Micheline Rolla — The aunt · Valentine Camax — Englishwoman
- Screenplay
- Jacques Tati · Henri Marquet
- Production
- Fred Orain
- Cinematography
- Jacques Mercanton · Jean Mousselle
Version map
Where to go next
Want a gentler, shorter, or stranger next film?
Ask Momo for something like this →
Momo is on shift. Visit Momo Cinema →
