''Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot'' (french: Les Vacances de M. Hulot; released as ''Monsieur Hulot's Holiday'' in the US) is a 1953 French

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

starring and directed by

Jacques Tati Jacques Tati (; born Jacques Tatischeff, ; 9 October 1907 – 5 November 1982) was a French mime, film-maker, actor and screenwriter. In an ''Entertainment Weekly'' poll of the Greatest Movie Directors, he was voted the 46th greatest of all time ...

. It introduced the pipe-smoking, well-meaning but clumsy character of

Monsieur Hulot Monsieur Hulot is a character created and played by French comic Jacques Tati for a series of films in the 1950s and '60s, namely '' Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot'' (1953), '' Mon Oncle'' (1958), ''Playtime'' (1967) and ''Trafic'' (1971). The c ...

, who appears in Tati's subsequent films, including ''

Mon Oncle ''Mon Oncle'' (; ''My Uncle'') is a 1958 comedy film by French filmmaker Jacques Tati. The first of Tati's films to be released in colour, ''Mon Oncle'' won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a Special Prize at the 1958 Cannes Film ...

'' (1958), '' Playtime'' (1967), and ''

Trafic ''Trafic'' (''Traffic'') is a 1971 Italian-French comedy film directed by Jacques Tati. ''Trafic'' was the last film to feature Tati's famous character of Monsieur Hulot, and followed the vein of earlier Tati films that lampooned modern society ...

'' (1971). The film gained an international reputation for its creator when released in 1953. The film was very successful as it had a total of 5,071,920 ticket sales in France.

Cast

as Monsieur Hulot * Nathalie Pascaud as Martine * Micheline Rolla as The Aunt * Valentine Camax as Englishwoman * Louis Perrault as Fred * André Dubois as The Major * Lucien Frégis as Hotel Proprietor * Raymond Carl as Waiter * René Lacourt as Strolling Man * Marguerite Gérard as Strolling Woman * Claude Schillio as Photographer Christopher Lee provided all the voices for the English dub of the film.

Style

For the most part, in ''Les Vacances,'' 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 meticulously choreographed visual gags. However, the film is by no means a 'silent' comedy, as it uses natural and man-made sounds not only for comic effect but also for character development. The film was made in both French and English language versions. While Tati had experimented with color film in ''Jour de fête,'' ''Les Vacances'' is black and white. The

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

score, mostly variations on the theme "Quel temps fait-il à Paris", was written by Alain Romans. ''Les Vacances'' was shot in the town of Saint-Marc-sur-Mer, which lies on the edge of the industrial port of Saint-Nazaire, in the

Département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. Ninety ...

of Loire-Atlantique. Tati had fallen in love with the beguiling coastline while staying in nearby Port Charlotte with his friends, M. and Mme Lemoine, before the war and resolved to return one day to make a film there. Tati and his crew turned up in the summer of 1951, "took over the town and then presented it to the world as the quintessence of French middle-class life as it rediscovered its rituals in the aftermath of the Second World War." "Neither too big nor too small, t Marc fit the bill- a sheltered inlet, with a graceful curve of sand, it boasted a hotel on the beach on which the main action could be centred. Beach huts, windbreaks, fishing boats and outcrops of rock helped to complete a picture which was all the more idyllic for being so unspectacular." A bronze statue of Monsieur Hulot was later erected and overlooks the beach where the film was made.

Critical response

On its release in the United States,

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

'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." Tati biographer

David Bellos David Bellos (born 1945) is an English-born translator and biographer. Bellos is Meredith Howland Pyne Professor of French Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University in the United States. He was director of Princeton ...

has described the film as "Sublime" and stated "It was through this film that I first fell in love with France. I think that is true of a lot of people." The journalist Simon O'Hagan, on the occasion of the film's 50th anniversary in 2003, wrote that the film "might contain the greatest collection of sight gags ever committed to celluloid, but it is the context in which they are placed and the atmosphere of the film that lift it into another realm. The central character is an unforgettable amalgam of bafflement at the modern world, eagerness to please and just the right amount of eccentricity - i.e. not too much - his every effort to fit in during his seaside holiday merely succeeds in creating chaos out of orderliness. Puncturing the veneer of the comfortably off at play is by no means the least of Tati's concerns. But,

here is Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to: Software * Here Technologies, a mapping company * Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Television * Here TV (formerly "here!"), a TV ...

an elegiac quality oo the sense that what Tati finds funny he also cherishes." The film was entered into the

1953 Cannes Film Festival The 6th Cannes Film Festival was held from 15 to 29 April 1953. The Grand Prix of the Festival went to ''The Wages of Fear'' by Henri-Georges Clouzot. The festival opened with '' Horizons sans fin'' by Jean Dréville. During the opening ceremony ...

Accolades

* Ranked #49 on ''Empire'' magazine's list of the 100 Best Films of World Cinema.

References

External links

* * *
''M. Hulot's Holiday''
an essay by

David Ehrenstein David Ehrenstein (born February 18, 1947) is an American critic who focuses primarily on gay issues in cinema. Life and career Ehrenstein was born in New York City. His father was a Jew with Polish ancestors, and his mother was half-black and ha ...

at the Criterion Collection
Roger Ebert's Review of Mr. Hulot's HolidayIn Search of Monsieur Hulot's Holiday - article from The Guardian about staying in the Hotel de la Plage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, Les 1953 films 1953 comedy films French black-and-white films Films about vacationing Films directed by Jacques Tati Films scored by Alain Romans Films set in hotels French comedy films 1950s French-language films Louis Delluc Prize winners French satirical films Films set on beaches 1950s French films