Monsieur Hulot's vacation

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Movie
German title Monsieur Hulot's vacation
Original title Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot
Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot title.jpg
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1953
length 110 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Jacques Tati
script Jacques Tati, Henri Marquet , Pierre Aubert , Jacques Lagrange
production Fred Orain
music Alain Romans
camera Jacques Mercaton , Jean Mousselle
cut Jacques Grassi , Ginou Breton
occupation

Monsieur Hulot's vacation from 1953 is the second feature film by French director Jacques Tati after several short films . The work premiered in France on February 25, 1953.

action

A wide variety of people spend their holidays in a small Breton seaside resort - in addition to the French, English, Swiss and Germans spend their holidays there. While the rest of the guests indulge in their amusements such as swimming, tennis, card games, and socializing, one guest, Monsieur Hulot, inadvertently creates turbulence after another. With his preference for jazz music he disturbs the roommates of his pension and wakes them up at night with his loud old automobile. On the beach, he creates the impression that his damaged paddle boat is a whale. When trying to straighten a picture, he leaves a room with some demolished and damaged items. Without any previous practical knowledge of tennis, he beats all the guests with his unusual serve (the technique of which he learned from the saleswoman during the quality demonstration when purchasing the racket), which the Englishwoman, who acts as referee, really loves. He plays table tennis with the son of a German couple and, in his search for the devious ball, causes two independent card rounds to quarrel in such a way that fights arise by turning a card player's chair to another table while the game is being played. While fleeing from dogs chasing him, he unintentionally set off the fireworks in a hut the night before the end of the holiday. While the other guests are listening to a speech on the radio, he prefers to dance with the young Martine, who, along with an old Englishwoman, a Swiss and the German boy, is the only one who feels sympathy for him. When he wants to go riding with Martine, he did not manage to mount his white horse and this locks then when knocking out another guest in the car, so that Hulot rather takes flight.

His experiences are embedded in a series of small scenes that provide less of a plot than snapshots: At the train station, where people always appear on the wrong platforms after incomprehensible announcements and the trains always arrive on the other platforms; the dog that sleeps in the street and only gives way after being persuaded; Teenagers listening to Duke Ellington and smoking English cigarettes; the young communist who always gives Martine political lectures; Children trying their magnifying glass on sleeping adults; the two women who wear the same dress for an excursion and immediately turn around when they meet in the hallway; the hotel employees who suspect all guests who disturb their order.

At the end of summer, all the guests say goodbye to each other, but cut the owl Hulot. Only the old Englishwoman and the equally old Swiss say goodbye to him; they notice that despite the many men around Martine, it is the lovable Chaot Hulot who Martine liked most.

backgrounds

  • M. Hulot's vacation works like a silent film : hardly any words are spoken that are also spoken in the different languages ​​of the guests - French, German and English. The protagonist Monsieur Hulot only speaks one word, namely Hulot. Musically, Alain Romans ' main relaxed theme dominates ; acoustic effects are often used.
  • The film was shot in color, but Tati decided to bring it to theaters in black and white . Only in the last scene does the picture become colored for a moment.
  • There are versions of the film of different lengths. It originally ran for 114 minutes. The version mostly shown on television today is 89 minutes long and was designed by Tati in 1978, a few years before his death.
  • The location was Saint-Marc-sur-Mer in Saint-Nazaire , the beach is now called “La Plage de Monsieur Hulot” and is adorned with a statue of Monsieur Hulot. The "Hôtel de la Plage" still exists today as a slightly modified hotel.
  • Monsieur Hulot appeared as a character in other Jacques Tati films: My uncle , evening school , Tati's glorious times and in Trafic .
  • The automobile driven by Hulot is a classic Salmson AL3, built between 1923 and 1924.

Reviews

“The gags are lined up like a string of pearls, connected by an extremely endearing intelligence and a romantic charm. A tenderly enjoyable type comedy that resists any cinematic classification, not only in French cinema. "

- Lexicon of international film

“It's not a cheerful comedy, but a comedy of memory, nostalgia, love and a good mood. There are some real laughs, but Monsieur Hulot's vacation gives us something rare, an amusing affection for human nature, peculiar, precious and special. "

- Roger Ebert : Sunday Times

Awards

The film won the Louis Delluc Prize in 1953 and took part in the Cannes Film Festival , where it was awarded the “Prize of International Criticism”. He also received the Belgian Prix ​​Femina . In 1956 Tati and Henri Marquet were nominated for an Oscar in the “Best Screenplay” category. In addition to participating in the Cannes festival, the film also took part in the 1953 Berlinale .

reception

Loriot took over a scene from The Holidays of M. Hulot in the 1970s : Hulot enters the salon of Martine's pension in riding clothes and tries to straighten a crooked picture. As a result, several mishaps gradually happened to him. Loriot playing in his Sketch rooms devastation a representative who makes a house call and waiting in the living room on its customers while it inadvertently demolished the whole room. The gag was also copied in which the chaot gets stuck on the carpet. Since Hulot wears riding boots with spurs, the scene seems convincing here; with the representative, however, there is no reason to get stuck.

The British comedian Benny Hill took over some of Tati's skits in the 1980s: The scene in which Hulot (Tati) as a hotel guest reaches over the table for the salt shaker at dinner is legendary, just as the person next to the table is mouthing wants to wipe it with the napkin. The person sitting next to him cleaned his mouth on the sleeve of Hulot and not on the napkin - the comic situation was perfect. This scene is repeated again after a few seconds.

Rowan Atkinson was influenced by Monsieur Hulot when designing his character Mr. Bean . Appearances in the Ministry of Silly Walks (translated as: Ministry of Comical Gaits ) in Monty Python's Flying Circus also have similarities to Hulot's sometimes unusual walking style.

The French writer Jean-Claude Carrière wrote a novel after the film, which was published in Germany in 2003.

Movie blogger Burello Submarine lists three to four really memorable ways of going weird:

"I can think of three truly memorable comic walks: Charlie Chaplin , Groucho Marx , and Jacques Tati ... then there's the whole Monty Python 's Flying Circus" Ministry of Silly Walks "but that's another story."

DVD release

  • Monsieur Hulot's vacation . Ufa 2005
  • M. Hulot's Holiday , Criterion Collection (Code 1), USA 2006

Soundtrack

  • Alain Romans : Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (excerpts), on: Extraits of the volume originales of the film de Jacques Tati . Philips / Polygram n.d., sound carrier no. 836 983-2

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dieter Krusche, Jürgen Labenski : Reclams film guide. 7th edition, Reclam, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-15-010205-7 , p. 589.
  2. ↑ 1924 Salmson AL 3 in "Les vacances de M. Hulot, 1953". In: IMCDb.org. Retrieved August 12, 2020 .
  3. ↑ The Vacation of Mr. Hulot. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 28, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ^ Roger Ebert: Mr. Hulot's Holiday. In: RogerEbert.com. November 10, 1996, accessed August 28, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Bruce Dessau, Bean There Done That: The Life and Times of Rowan Atkinson. Welcome Rain, 1997
  6. ^ Quiet and at a Distance. In: BurrelloSubmarine's Movie Blog. January 30, 2012, accessed January 1, 2014 .