SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Julian Evans Some movies entertain and fill the senses with thrills and excitement while others manipulate emotions and leave us in tears. Here is a film that does all of that and so much more besides. I'm not French and I didn't holiday in France either; yet here I am, full of nostalgia for childhood holidays, the sun, the beach and the unwritten rules of the two-week holiday. Tati captures the nuances of life that we all cherish, whether previously observed or not. To be human, to be shy, to be eccentric, serious, tired, cool, arty, a dragon or a man with no purpose other than to follow six paces behind his wife. The music, the pace, the sheer silliness, the unintelligible voice on the Tannoy, the child's head appearing through the steering wheel. How can anyone over the age of 25 not watch this with a smile on their face? I have read some reviews that call it boring and repetitive... no doubt written by folks that need aliens, car chases, guns, blood and expletives every other word. What good is a film without nudity, the main character with his shirt ripped off, sirens screaming, breakneck pace and clipped dialogue? To those people: one day, when you've experienced more of life, when you're ready and receptive you will 'get' it, I promise you. And when that happens you will see what is meant by the reverence metered out on this film. It's beautifully made, utterly charming, funny, poignant, cool, relaxing, annoying, shrewd, enlightening, observational, human, warm, unassuming, inoffensive and completely brilliant.

Cinefill1 -Les Vacances de M. Hulot (released as Monsieur Hulot's Holiday in the UK and Mr. Hulot's Holiday in the US) is a 1953 French comedy film starring and directed by Jacques Tati. It introduced the pipe-smoking, well-meaning but clumsy character of Monsieur Hulot, who appears in Tati's subsequent films, including Mon Oncle (1959), Playtime (1967), and Trafic (1971). The film gained an international reputation for its creator when released in 1953. The film was very successful as it had a total of 5,071,920 admissions in France.--Critical response:-On its release in the United States, Bosley Crowther's review said that the film contained "much the same visual satire that we used to get in the 'silent' days from the pictures of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and such as those." He said the film "exploded with merriment" and that Tati "is a long-legged, slightly pop-eyed gent whose talent for caricaturing the manners of human beings is robust and intense.... There is really no story to the picture.... The dialogue... is at a minimum, and it is used just to satirize the silly and pointless things that summer people say. Sounds of all sorts become firecrackers, tossed in for comical point." -Tati biographer David Bellos has described the film as "Sublime," and said that, "It was through this film that I first fell in love with France. I think that is true of a lot of people." The journalist Simon O'Hagan, writing on the occasion of the film's 50th anniversary in 2003, wrote that 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. The central character is an unforgettable amalgam of bafflement at the modern world, eagerness to please and just the right amount of eccentricity - i.e. not too much - his every effort to fit in during his seaside holiday merely succeeds in creating chaos out of orderliness. Puncturing the veneer of the comfortably off at play is by no means the least of Tati's concerns. But, (there is) an elegiac quality (too), the sense that what Tati finds funny he also cherishes." -The film was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.

Ilpo Hirvonen Jacques Tati made a few short films in the 1930-40's, but in 1949 made his first full-length feature film, Jour de fete. Despite the wishes of his producer, Tati decided to leave his Francais the mailman character behind and developed a new character, Monsieur Hulot. He had no idea how much attention the film would get and therefore wasn't going to continue making films around this character. Well we all know this didn't happen, after Mr. Hulot's Holiday Jacques Tati still made four other 'Hulot' films. Mr. Hulot's Holiday ironically described mass tourism and it's a great example of Tati's satire, which exudes intelligence.The story takes place in a holiday resort in a small French seaside town. The guests in the hotel are normal; businessmen, elderly couples, young people, all sorts of people. They all act as people usually act on a vacation; they play bridge, try new activities, read, eat and relax. But then Mr. Hulot arrives, who very hardly tries to do these things considered to be normal, but fails miserably.Jacques Tati's first full-length film, Jour de fete (1949) was a tribute to the burlesque genre and his other films can be described with that word too. But one must realize that his films certainly aren't ordinary compared to other burlesque comedies by Chaplin, Lloyd, Marx bros or Keaton. He completely rejects the traditional formula of it; the two main characters don't marry each other in the end, the dialog doesn't make sense and there is no direct plot for the viewer to follow. But this certainly doesn't mean Tati and for instance Chaplin wouldn't have anything in common, they have a lot of in common. Just as Chaplin so doesn't Tati care that much about dialog; it mostly just expressed the difficulties of communication. Just as Chaplin so did Tati have an own standard character - both the tramp and Mr. Hulot are comical heroes, who make the people around them look ridiculous. Both of the characters that Dostoyevsky's Idiot has: they're individuals who seem like idiots to others, but like geniuses to others. As did Dostoyevsky so did Jacques Tati portray a world where a sanatorium is the only place for a saintJacques Tati plans his gags for years. Many film historians, researchers and critics have written several studies about them. I'd like to point out the opening scene of Mr. Hulot's Holiday, which has often been praised as one of the most brilliant scenes made in the history of cinema: We see a boat and waves hitting it - a peaceful beach. Then Jacques Tati suddenly takes us to a railway station where people try to catch the right train. We hear absurd announcements and see the tourists floating from one platform to another. This violent contrast of course, makes us think about the connection between them; the people are coming to destroy the peace of the beach, they're coming to turn it to a hectic place just like the railway station. But this contrast is also very poetic; if one pays attention one will notice that the waves float exactly in the same way the tourists float from one platform to another. The people always come in the same order to the platform and this refers to the mechanization of life. In Jacques Tati's films he often puts dialog in an absurd place: in the opening scene the people try and try to listen what the announcements are saying, but end up running insanely back and forth. I think by this Jacques Tati wants to say us that if we try to only follow the words in cinema (in life) we'll end up just like the tourists.The sound world of Jacques Tati is very rich and even that he doesn't 'believe' in dialog, he uses narrative based on sounds a lot. And the relation between the picture and the sound is perfect. His visual gags are geographically perfect and his satire which exudes intelligence is full of hilarious gags about objects and vehicles. In addition to this Jacques Tati has a great talent of observing: just with few short shots he manages to tell us the main points of the situation.Mr. Hulot's Holiday is an ironic description of mass tourism and it elegantly criticizes the destruction of old habitat. It shows us how order and disorder work - this can be seen clearly in the opening scene. Even that Jacques Tati's production is one of the most compact ones he is always seen in the lists of the world's greatest directors. With only four films he managed to create an unforgettable character, Mr. Hulot. I can highly recommend you to watch the other Hulot films as well: Mon oncle, Play Time and last but not least Trafic.

Boba_Fett1138 Seems that I just don't like this movie as much as everyone else seems to do. Don't get me wrong, I was still throughout amused by this movie, it just was not one that really ever made me laugh out loud or entertain constantly, while this was obviously the movie its intentions. The movie tries to be an humorous one in basically literally all of its scene's. Needless to say that not everything in the movie really works out and there are just a few moments that are truly funny. Add to that that the overall movie is quite slowly paced, so its sequences often really take its time to develop and to reach its funny peak.Those moments are often the slapstick ones. You could say that this movie is being a 'modern' slapstick, that features as little dialog as possible. The psychical comedy of the movie can get funny at times, though its not ever anything too surprising or innovative. There is not really a story in it all. It's simply about a beach-side hotel, at which some strange characters stay. Main character is Monsieur Hulot, who everybody for no apparent reason seems to hate. He is being played by director Jacques Tati himself and was a character that got featured in some later Jacques Tati comedies again. I'm still willing to give all those movies a shot though, since I was still quite amused by this whole movie. And I'm a fan of slapstick humor as well, so I'm hoping this all gets featured better in some of the other 'Monsieur Hulot' movies.Thing is that there just isn't much to the story at all. There is no problem or big mystery that needs to be solved. No love story or no evil villainous characters. There is nothing wrong with a movie that doesn't really follow a narrative and is just basically the one comical intended sequences and situation after the other but in this case the movie just doesn't know to benefit from this approach. The movie doesn't even really constantly follow its main character at all. Added to that is it's rather slow pace of story-telling (which French movies are often known for), with as an end result an at times rather slow and lacking comedy.Amusing to watch throughout but just not always that funny and it all gets too slowly paced, by writer, director and actor, Jacques Tati.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/