Trafic - Criterion Collection

Trafic - Criterion Collection
by Jacques Tati

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Francois Maisongrosse, Honore Bostel, Marcel Fravel, Maria Kimberly, Tony Knappers
Director: Jacques Tati
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Marcel Weiss
Cinematographer: Eduard van der Enden
Composer: Charles Dumont
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: French (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 97 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-07-15
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: Criterion

Movie Reviews of Trafic - Criterion Collection

Movie Review: Hulot's Last Holiday
Summary: 4 Stars

After going bankrupt with the disappointing Playtime - Criterion Collection, Jacques Tati brought back his Monsieur Hulot character for one last outing in Trafic.

While Playtime poked fun at modern architecture and its alienating effects on the people confronted by it, Trafic simply explores the effect that cars have on people. It's a much more simplistic film than its predecessor and, I believe, a better one.

In Trafic, Tati's Monsieur Hulot is the director of design for the auto company Altra and it is his job to transport his new, elaborately designed automobile to an auto show in Amsterdam. Of course, nothing goes as planned beginning with the fact that the car must be transported in the back of a truck that frequently breaks down or runs out of gas at the most inopportune moments. The car is, of course, nothing too simplistic itself. It's a "camping car" complete with fold-out chairs, a table, two twin beds, a stove, cigarette lighter, and a whole lot more. Trafic also features a jazzy musical score reminiscent of M. Hulot's Holiday - Criterion Collection.

As with Playtime, there's not much plot to speak of but, remarkably, Tati still makes his point clear with a never-ending stream of sight gags and the like.

One of the factors that I think makes Trafic better than Playtime is the less serious tone. It has a much breezier pace and it's more colorfully vibrant than the gloomy gray of Playtime.

As with all of the Hulot films, Tati doesn't use close-ups. He lets the camera linger back allowing Hulot and whatever other character may come along to be lost in the chaos of their misadventures. And the aforementioned misadventures here are brilliant; the car-crash scene and subsequent hilarity that ensues is delightful and well choreographed.

Besides the endless gags about cars; Tati also incorporates many jokes involving animals. These are some of the high-points of the film, particularly a scene in which a group of kids steal a dog and make up a fur-coat to look like the dog before lodging it under the tire of a car. Then there's Hulot trying to convince the devastated owner that it's not actually her dog. Tati wraps up his film with a brilliant shot of umbrella-toting people walking amidst a bunch of cars.

I like to compare Tati to Chaplin and it is true that Hulot would have existed comfortably with the Little Tramp. However, while the Tramp's exploits were simple, yet laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreaking; Hulot's are much more complex and silly. Tati was probably a better filmmaker than Chaplin, but Chaplin was much funnier and more personal. There will be times while watching Trafic when you have a smile glued to your face and you're marveling at the sheer genius of it all. Entertainment wasn't always a weapon Tati wielded, but the man did have a knack for staging wonderful, elaborate sight gags that likely required both money and extreme attention to detail.

Inferior to the original Hulot (mis)adventure, Trafic is worth seeking out. The Hulot character may have made Tati bankrupt, but with Trafic the man departed with his character on a high-note.

GRADE: B+

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Summary of Trafic - Criterion Collection

In Jacques Tati's Trafic, the bumbling Monsieur Hulot, outfitted as always with tan raincoat, beaten brown hat, and umbrella, takes to Paris's highways and byways. For this, his final outing, Hulot is employed as an auto company's director of design, and accompanies his new vehicle (a camper tricked out in all sorts of absurd gadgetry) to an auto show in Amsterdam. Naturally, the road is paved with modern-age mishaps. This late-career delight is a masterful demonstration of the comic genius's expert timing and sidesplitting visual gags, and a bemused last look at technology run amok.

Trafic, one of Jacques Tati's later films starring his enigmatic alter ego, Monsieur Hulot, contains more direct social satire than his previous classics Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1953), Mon Oncle (1958), and Playtime (1967), but lacks none of the vibrant physical humor that makes Hulot one of cinema's most revered comedic characters. Filmed in a vivid color palette of red, yellow, and green cars against a silver and glass Modernist architectural backdrop, Trafic stars Mr. Hulot as the designer of an auto meant to travel in a truck to the Amsterdam Car Show to represent his company, Altra. Hulot's camper wagon, aimed at simplicity with its efficient built-in kitchen and sleep gear, is constantly delayed due to car accidents, police run-ins, traffic jams, and other ironic mishaps. As Altra's director (Honore Bastel) waits in their booth decorated with fake trees and bird recordings, Hulot, truckdriver Marcel (Marcel Fravel), and stylish public relations secretary Maria (Maria Kimberly), embark on an adventure in which their vehicles are clearly in charge. Dressed in his trademark tan raincoat and hat, Monsieur Hulot constantly transforms tragedy into comedy. In one famous scene, after hippies place an animal pelt under Maria's car tire to pass as her dog, Pito, Hulot wears the pelt and dances to cheer his friend. Extended scenes showing trafficky highways and drivers fidgeting in their cars pitted against Hulot, constantly baffled by the technology he is supposed to master, reveal underlying themes of human disconnect with nature. Trafic stands as biting commentary against a culture sabotaged by the invention of the auto, and like Godard's Weekend, stands as testament to a revolutionary age.

This Criterion Collection release includes important extras, like a 1973 episode of French show, "Morceaux de bravoure," in which Tati speaks about his overall working methods. Also impressive is his daughter's full-length documentary, "In the Footsteps of Monsieur Hulot" (1989), which collects ample archival footage of Tati and his friend, professor A. Sauvy, discussing each film's invention. Here, Tati said of Trafic that he was inspired to make a film that would make people smile after noticing so many frowns on the Paris highways. Road rage assuaged by cinema is a truly Modern gesture. --Trinie Dalton

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