Jour de fete

jour de fete - Jacques Tati - DVD - black and white version

Movie review of Jour de fete, starring Jacques Tati

I recently watched Jour de fete starring Jacques Tati, courtesy of TCM. I had heard of Jacques Tati, who people compare favorably with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, but I’d never seen any of his films previously. Jour de fete was Jacques Tati’s first feature-length film, an expanded version of one of his short films.

In a nutshell, a small carnival is coming to a small French village in the years after World War II; one of the attractions is a documentary film about the American postal service’s efficiency, which results in some good-natured joking with the local postal worker, played by Jacques Tati, who then tries to emulate American efficiency. With some humorous, inefficient results.

Photo of Jacques Tati as postman in Jour de Fete

Jour de fete runs for about 1.5 hours. And the first two-thirds of the movie went very slowly, with my children (who were watching with me) repetitively asking “When will the movie be over?” There were some funny bits in the first hour of the film, but not nearly enough, and the pace seemed quite slow. The last half hour, however, was very funny, and redeemed itself. I rate it 2 out of 5 clowns.