Trafic (1972)

To me, this movie is perfection.

So much average

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

(Flash Review)Another visually clever film by Tati. While not as ingenious as his more notable films, this offers a few pleasant gags here and there. The protagonist Mr. Hulot is tasked with delivering a concept car; a camper transforming vehicle to an auto show. During the road trip, everything that can go wrong that you can think of goes wrong: flat tire, out of gas, etc. There are some French cultural gags as well as jokes about everyday people and what they do while alone in their cars such as picking noses and eating odd foods. Overall, there are a mixture of visually funny moments and physical comedy. Some scenes lose focus and are less funny and are drug out too long. Not as good as Mon Oncle or Playtime.

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.

As a big fan of Jacques Tati, it's terribly sad for me to state, that this film is surely his worst. And what's worse, compared to all his other classics, this one hasn't aged well.I won't blame Tati for this, because after the financial disaster with the production of Playtime, it must have been extremely difficult to find investors again.The obvious problem with Trafic is, that it's not a french comedy, but a french-belgian-dutch one. And this simply doesn't work. The plot line is hazardous, the supporting (amateur) actors are completely uninspired and surely far from any sort of "direction". The characters remain obscure and two-dimensional - even the one played by Jacques Tati himself - and do not manage to raise the viewer's interest or sympathy.Jokes are badly and horribly slowly timed, the choreography, one of Tati's masterly domains, is wooden and uninspired. Worst of all is the editing, which is incredible. Scenes are cut and linked without any sense. I doubt that Jacques Tati can be held responsible for that. Anyway, this is just one big disappointment, and anyone who loves Tati's movies should stay away from this one. It makes your heart break to see, how bad a Tati movie can be.Three stars are definitely three too many... but it's Jacques Tati...

I didn't know what to expect when I went to see this movie many years ago. I was delightfully surprised. This is a very funny movie, but it is subtle in it's kookie-ness.Two men have developed a new camping van and have set out to take it to an outdoors show. This should be an ordinary trip full of coffee, donuts and long boring stretches of road. But no, this does not take place in America; it starts in Paris and the goal is Amsterdam. Much can happen along such a route, and in this case, just about everything does.Will they make it there before the show has ended? Will their dreams of being successful come to pass? These are the driving questions of this movie. They seem rather uninteresting goals, don't they? Nevertheless, these characters will likely win you over and have you rooting for them as they make their bumbling stab at entrepreneurship. Or, just as likely, you may find yourself enjoying every obstacle that steps in their way, as I did.Much is unexpected in this movie and that's what makes it fun! Share this one with your friends and they will thank you.Note: this is a comedy, there's not much gore or street fights, shoot-outs or bombs taking out city blocks, so be forewarned, this movie with not shake your subwoofer.Although not a spy movie, it somewhat reminds me of the original "Tall Blonde Man with One Black Shoe": another wonderful French comedy.