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Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
Film poster
Directed by	Jacques Tati
Written by	Jacques Tati Henri Marquet
Produced by	Fred Orain
Starring	Jacques Tati Nathalie Pascaud Micheline Rolla
Release dates	France February 25, 1953 USA June 16, 1954
Running time	114 min.
Language	French

Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (released as Monsieur Hulot's Holiday in the UK and as Mr. Hulot's Holiday in the USA), is one of Jacques Tati's most famous films, gaining an international reputation for its director upon its release in 1953. Les Vacances introduced the pipe-smoking, well-meaning but clumsy character of M. Hulot, who appears in a number of Tati's subsequent films, including Mon Oncle (1959), Playtime (1967), and Trafic (1971).

Les Vacances follows the adventures of a lovable French dimwit, Monsieur Hulot (played by Tati himself) as he spends the mandatory August vacation at a beach resort. The film openly lampoons several hidebound elements of French political and economic classes, from chubby capitalists and rabid Marxists to petty proprietors and drab dilettantes, most of whom find it nearly impossible, even temporarily, to free themselves from their rigid social roles long enough to relax and enjoy life. Les Vacances also gently mocks the confidence of postwar Western society in the primacy of work over leisure and the value of complex technology over simple pleasures, themes that would resurface in his later films.

In Les Vacances, Tati dispensed with the already sparse speaking roles and incidental character narration of his prior film, Jour de fête. For the most part, spoken dialogue is limited to the role of background sounds. Combined with frequent long shots of scenes with multiple characters, Tati believed that the results would tightly focus audience attention on the comical nature of humanity when interacting as a group, as well as his own carefully planned visual gags. However, the film is by no means a copycat 'silent' comedy, as it uses natural and man-made sounds not only for comic effect, but also for character development.

The film was recorded with both French and English soundtracks. While Tati had experimented with color film in his previous film Jour de fête, Les Vacances is black and white. The jazz score, which includes the theme "Quel Temps Fait-Il A Paris"[1], is by Alain Romans.

Les Vacances earned Tati an Oscar nomination (shared with Henri Marquet) for Best Original Screenplay.

Les Vacances was filmed in the town of Saint-Marc-sur-Mer in the Loire-Atlantique region of France, and a bronze statue of M. Hulot was later erected overlooking the beach where the film was made.

Critical reaction

On its release in the United States, Bosley Crowther's review said that the film contained "much the same visual satire that we used to get in the 'silent' days from the pictures of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and such as those." He said the film "exploded with merriment" and that Tati "is a long-legged, slightly pop-eyed gent whose talent for caricaturing the manners of human beings is robust and intense.... There is really no story to the picture.... The dialogue... is at a minimum, and it is used just to satirize the silly and pointless things that summer people say. Sounds of all sorts become firecrackers, tossed in for comical point."

Cast

• Jacques Tati as Monsieur Hulot
• Nathalie Pascaud as Martine
• Micheline Rolla as The Aunt
• Valentine Camax as Englishwoman
• Louis Perrault as Fred
• André Dubois as Commandant
• Lucien Frégis as Hotel Proprietor
• Raymond Carl as Waiter
• René Lacourt as Strolling Man
• Marguerite Gérard as Strolling Woman

External links

• Monsieur Hulot's Holiday at IMDb
• Monsieur Hulot's Holiday at Rotten Tomatoes
• Criterion Collection essay by David Ehrenstein
• Saint-Marc-sur-Mer Photo Gallery