AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Martin Bradley Jacques Tati's "Trafic" is an almost plot less series of visual gags, all of them inspired and the best of them among the finest in Tati's oeuvre, yet the film was not a critical success and remains hugely underrated. This time Hulot is taking a 'camping car' from Belgium to the Amsterdam Motor Show and naturally causes havoc wherever he goes, (the film has the most beautifully choreographed and balletic car-crash in the movies).Tati was, of course, the greatest visual comic since Chaplin and Keaton but unlike the great silent comics he had the virtue of sound at his fingertips and perhaps no director used sound effects with the same degree of brilliance that Tati does here. Dialogue, while not necessarily kept to a minimum, is again mostly redundant. But then words were never what Tati was about; you can watch his films without the benefit of subtitles and still understand them. This may not be in the same class as "Les Vacances De M Hulot" but it's essential nevertheless.

James Arnold So far, this is the only Jacques Tati movie I've seen. It's extremely visual. It looks great. In particular, the opening of the film and the movie's final major act are wonderful to watch. A few scenes show characters being swallowed up in massive sets and environments. The shot gets wider and wider, an approximation of how insignificant each of the characters are to those around them. Such shots are stunning in their beauty.Most of the comedy in Trafic is visual as well. I normally like wordplay, but I ended up liking Trafic's visual humor as well. For example, two workers are installing a sign for an "auto show", and one instructs the other to rotate the giant letter "O" before putting it up. Yet the O is perfectly round and looks the same at any rotation. Most of the comedy is from similar workplace incompetence and inefficiency. Much like a real workplace, there's nobody in the movie pointing out how ridiculous everyone is acting. The satire isn't mean-spirited; Tati isn't implying that workers are lazy or stupid, just that sometimes we end up behaving foolishly.A scene in the middle reminds me of Saturday Night Live, during its creative peak. Customs inspectors are suspicious of a prototype camper car, so its salespeople have to explain all of its features. This includes an electric razor inside the steering wheel, an extendable bed, a trunk-mounted shower, and a grill that seems to use heat from the engine. It's absurd and brilliant, and I've only listed some of the car's features. The inspectors aren't always convinced: hands having been squirted by the built-in soap dispenser, an official requests to have the soap analyzed. Anyone who has seen Charlie Chaplin's movies will see shades of his characters in Jacques Tati's Mr. Hulot -- he changes a tire with extremely exaggerated, rhythmic alternation between crouching and standing.All of the humor, both visual and spoken, translates excellently from French (and there is some English in the movie anyway), although one joke about a gas station giving out trinkets will only be fully appreciated by audiences who were alive when gas stations still did this (before the 1970s?). I think it compares very easily to "Airplane!" or The Naked Gun. In contrast to The Naked Gun, Trafic is more deathly serious despite being hilarious. Part of the comedy is playing "what's wrong with this picture?", and sometimes it's really hard! If you miss the jokes, or have to have them explained, you won't find the movie as funny.96 minutes long is the perfect length for this movie. It conveys the annoyance of waiting for a roadside mechanic or being late for an event, without forcing viewers to watch in real-time. There are plenty of jokes throughout the film to keep the audience's attention. Despite being called "Trafic", you're not going to see any metropolitan gridlock here. The movie happens *because* of some cars, but most of the movie is not *in* a car.Full disclosure: I watched this along with around 15 other young people in a film comedy class. I liked it far more than any of the other students, who found it to be either: occasionally smart but mostly boring, or entirely boring.

roy I enjoyed this film after I figured out that it was 'not' a comedy! This is static art, sort of, but more like mime, the kind of mime that is intended to make you laugh, in order to get your attention, in order to be what it actually wants to be, sentimental, cranky, entertaining without seeming to be willing to admit that the whole point is a cry to 'look at me', the same desire as is at the base of every film, but this film's intention is less well disguised, maybe intentionally, maybe the evident vulnerability is in fact the attractiveness of the piece.At some point I stopped following the dialog, and started 'watching' the movie, like a painting, one of those paintings on a curtain that keeps going on and on (what are they called? something 'dromes'). It may seem too explicit, the human hands mimicking the windshield wipers, et al, but if you can stop seeing the literalness, then there is something there, or at least there would have been in 1971, which I remember so well, driving the autobahn, tooling through the circles at 100 clicks, watching the colors go by.

lapratho Unlike the previous reviewer, I have to say that the French made many great comedies. But just as there are many styles in US cinema, so are there many styles in other countries. "Trafic" is a wonderful stab at modern life and our infatuation with cars that is more up to date than ever, with traffic jams at an all time high.In passing, or rather sitting, through the summery vacation road chaos this Tati movie slaps everything from drivers' behaviors and quirks that are border less, to general human characteristics, and even matters of national pride.I disagree with the inability of the French to laugh at themselves - but one needs to realize that the humor involved is very deep and tongue in cheek, but is just about even more stinging because it is not so superficial.What makes this movie, just like the other Tati movies so remarkable, is that one does not need to speak or understand French and can still watch it in its original sound track, because the camera does all the work. "Shtick" with brains, a piece of visual art that might hang in a modern art gallery, were it not a movie, self contained, intelligent, funny. It is a neat feature about most Tati films.I remember being in stitches when I last saw it, and that was after seeing it several times already. Other great French comedies would be the original versions of"The Tall Blonde With The Red (Black) Shoe", ie "Le Grand blond avec une chaussure noire"(note that the original odd shoe was black, not red),"Birdcage", ie "La Cage Aux Folles", the German title of which was much closer to the actual "A Cage Of Fools" .... oh heck, just look up movies with Pierre Richard, Jean Rochefort, the unknown to Americans (because he would have put Hollywwod to such shame to kill their business in comedy) all time unforgettable Louis De Funes, Fernandel, Mireille Darc, Yves Montand, Jean Paul Belmondo (one of his movies is an obvious blueprint for Indiana Jones), .... these are all true actors that are also capable of character studies and can deliver such a punch that it flies right over many people's heads .... maybe the previous reviewer is right ... the French have no comedy ... not of the shallow sitcom style in any case. If you can laugh with your whole heart, head , and soul though, then start digging and you will find much of the best ever made.