Good news for cinephiles and Francophiles alike, The Toledo Museum of Art is presenting the Jacques Tati Film Festival August 6-9 as part of their ongoing Play Time exhibit (ongoing until September 6 throughout Museum).
Born Jacques Tatischeff, Tati was a semi-professional rugby player until the global economic crisis began to effect France in 1931. Leaving his sports career, he became a mime and performance artist. This shaped not only his storytelling but also Tati’s most recognizable and longest running character, Monsieur Hulot. Tati’s work and his infamous M. Hulot have been imitated, parodied and paid homage to by countless artists and filmmakers, most notably in Silvain Chomet’s 2003 animated film the Triplets of Belleville, wherein M. Hulot makes a cameo, and with the 2010 animated film, The Illusionist, where Tati’s 1956 semi-autobiographical script was brought to life.
Surreal, sardonic, and undeniably comedic, the timeless films of Jacques Tati serve as great fare for first dates and family outings. The Toledo Museum of Art has scheduled an impressive sampling of Tati’s work for the four day film festival, must see films that rarely find their way onto area screens. Here are some details of the free Jacques Tati Film Festival.
Play Time (1967)
A comic statement about modern life and the trappings of technological society. Despite its far reaching acclaim, it was one of his most commercially unsuccessful ventures due in part to his insistence on only releasing it in 70 mm to a limited number of exhibition halls and theaters.
7pm Thursday, August 6. Peristyle Theater.
M. Hulot’s Holiday (1953)
AKA Les Vacances de M. Hulot, the four year long film shoot that introduced the world to Monsieur Hulot. He smokes pipe, offends the sensibilities of gentile fellow vacationers, and finds himself in myriad misadventures. 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,” according to Simon O'Hagan of the UK’s Independent. I would tend to agree.
7pm Friday, August 7. Little Theater.
Trafic (1971)
Hulot, working as an automobile designer for “Altra” and co-worker Maria get into hijinks while taking a newly designed camper van to a car show in Amsterdam. Its anticlimactic style was refreshing for filmgoers at the time who felt bombarded by over-the-top blockbuster movies.
9pm Saturday, August 8. Parking Lot 3.
Mon Oncle (1958)
In his first full color film, Tati explores the relationship between a doting M. Hulot and his nephew, Gérard who is confined to the superficial and ultra modern Villa Arpel. Gérard escapes his impersonal homelife with his impractical, dreamy, and very unemployed uncle. “Mon Oncle” was his most acclaimed work, earning a New York Film Critics Circle Award, and Best Foreign Language Oscar, and Special Prize at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival.
