Trafic
Starring: Jacques Tati, Maria Kimberly, Franco Ressel
Director: Jacques Tati
The film: Jacques Tati's much-loved alter ego Monsieur Hulot had his fourth and final outing - after M. Hulot's Holiday (1953), Mon Oncle (1958) and Play Time (1967) - in Trafic, an obscure, and until now, hard-to-find road comedy. Following the disastrous reception of the since critically rehabilitated Play Time - which left the French filmmaker (far right) bankrupt and divested of the rights to all his previous films) - Tati was forced to collaborate with the Oscar-winning Dutch documentary director Bert Haanstra. The two soon fell out and Tati, once more lacking funds, continued filming with a Swedish film crew who were making a documentary about the making of Trafic. Some see it as Tati's weakest film (apart from his final effort, Parade, shot for Swedish television in 1974 and released in cinemas a year later), but Trafic has aged well, and for Tati fans, this long-awaited DVD release from Criterion is a dream come true.
This film finds Hulot in Paris working as a car designer. His latest effort is the Camping Car, which features all kinds of gadgets and gizmos that he, a driver and a public relations girl attempt to deliver to a car show in Amsterdam. Numerous events - traffic jams, a pile-up, a flat tyre, trouble with the police, etc - ensue, giving Tati free rein to showcase his singular brand of visual humour through keenly observed vignettes of varying degrees of subtlety.
Trafic may offer neither the naive charm of Mon Oncle nor the grand widescreen spectacle and detail of Play Time - or indeed the inventiveness of either - but it is still pure Tati and as rewatchable and intriguing as any of its predecessors.