Trafic [Traffic] ***** (1971, Jacques Tati, Marcel Fraval, Honoré Bostel) – Classic Movie Review 1319

Co-writer/director/star Jacques Tati’s endearing 1971 comedy masterpiece finds him in his familiar guise as his famous character of the amiably bumbling Monsieur Hulot.

This time he is an automobile designer who works for Altra Motors, a Paris car plant, and designs a camping car. Hulot, a lorry driver (Marcel Fraval) and publicity agent Maria (Maria Kimberly) take the new camper-car to the motor show in Amsterdam but suffer a series of disasters on the road from Paris. They get a flat tyre, run out of petrol, have a run-in with police, are impounded by Dutch customs guards and get involved a meticulously choreographed car accident.

The soundtrack is filled with several languages (Dutch, French, German and English) and daft noises, but Trafic [Traffic] just as easily could be a silent movie.

This is a most satisfying and enjoyable vehicle for the inimitable pantomimist, with an inventive, funny screenplay (by Tati with Jacques Legrange and Bert Haanstra) gently lampooning modern society, and a hugely engaging star performance. It is amusing, delightful and fresh however many times it is viewed.

Sadly, after an argument with Tati, Haanstra left the production. It was the last film to feature Monsieur Hulot and Tati’s final cinema movie.

In this French-Italian film, Tati uses the ‘franglais’ word ‘trafic’ for his title rather than the regular French word for car traffic, ‘la circulation’. The meaning of ‘trafic’ is ‘exchange of goods’.

The film was released by The Criterion Collection in 2008 in a special edition double-disc set.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1319

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