Jour de Fête ***** (1949, Jacques Tati, Guy Decomble, Paul Frankeur) – Classic Movie Review 2407

Co-writer/director Jacques Tati’s classic 1949 French comedy is charming, funny, good natured and generous spirited. Jour de Fête is still a revered world cinema masterpiece and necessary viewing.

The great French pantomime artist Tati stars as the local postman Francois, who gets on his bike for speedy mail deliveries after watching an American mail service movie – ‘The modern delivery techniques of the US post’.

Once a year the fair comes for one day to the little town of Sainte-Severe-sur-Indre. All inhabitants are scoffing at Francois, whose comic attempts at efficiency are silent movie-style jokes at their finest.But mostly this film is a warm-hearted, perhaps cosy, portrait of a sleepy, contented French community where the arrival of a carnival is great news.

Tati’s first feature as director is admirably simple and sweet with attractive work from a mostly amateur cast. Also in the cast are Guy Decomble, Paul Frankeur, Santa Relli, Maine Vallée, Roger Rafal, Robert Balpo, Delcassan and Jacques Beauvais.

Admittedly, this venerable classic is showing its age a little, with the humour now seeming rather old-fashioned and a little creaky at the joints. Nevertheless this still remains an endearing, beautifully etched portrait of a rural small town in another, long bygone age, like one of the postie’s Gallic-style deliveries that has taken too long (around 60 or so years actually) to arrive.

It looks gorgeous in the 1995 restored full-colour print, like a hand-tinted photograph or one of the 1920s two-tone Technicolor movies. Tati’s expressive and nimble pantomime skills as a performer are undeniable and admirable, and his imagination and fluidity as a film-maker are joyous. Just watch him move his camera into every nook and cranny of the village or train the lens closely to observe a villager’s expressive face.

By today’s standards the humour itself is extremely gentle in a movie that is consistently amusing rather than achingly funny. And the satire at the expense of the American way of life and in favour of the French seems quite conservative and even jingoistic, but it is without any edge or malice.

When the jokes thin out from time to time, the movie seems like a documentary on French village life, revealing the film to be a warm commentary on that way of life, and as such it is immensely revealing and appealing.

Tati won the Best Screenplay award at the Venice Film Festival in 1949.

Tati filmed both black and white and colour versions, but the latter was unseen through technical difficulties till 1995, though a lovely hand-coloured print was made available in the 70s.

Jacques Tatischeff (October 9 1907 – November 4 1982) made this when he was 40 after years in music hall and small film roles. He followed this with Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday in 1953.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2407

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