Jour de fête (1949)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Jacques Tati

Writers:

Jacques Tati (writer) and
Henri Marquet (writer) ...

Release Date:

4 May 1949 (France)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Once a year the fair comes for one day to the little town 'Sainte-Severe-sur-Indre'. All inhabiters are scoffing at Francois...

Plot Keywords:

Mail | Postman | Slapstick | Village | Very Little Dialogue

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Guy Decomble	...	Roger
Jacques Tati	...	François, the postman
Paul Frankeur	...	Marcel
Santa Relli	...	Roger's wife
Maine Vallée	...	Jeannette
Delcassan	...	The tattler
Roger Rafal	...	The hair-dresser
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Robert Balpo

Also Known As:

Holiday
The Big Day

Runtime:

70 min | Argentina:80 min (Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema) | Germany:79 min | Finland:86 min (1960) | 79 min (restored version)

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White (original release) | Color (Thomsoncolor) (alternate version, first released after restoration in 1995)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Portugal:M/6 | Australia:G | Argentina:Atp | Finland:S | Germany:6 (nf) (w) | UK:U

Filming Locations:

Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre, Indre, France

Company:

Cady Films

Trivia:

The movie was originally filmed in Thomson-color, a process that became extinct before prints of the film could be shown and was previously only available in a black and white version that was filmed as a precaution, in case the color process was not perfect. In 1995 the color copy was restored and published by Tati's daughter Sophie Tatischeff, and cinematographer François Ede.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Holiday (2006)

An Introduction to Tati

This movie will undoubtedly not be what you expect. The cover-art of Tati DVDs paints him as a Chaplin-esquire figure, but he's much gentler than Charlie. Charlie was energetic. You'll enjoy Tati's films if you expect a gentle trip to a beautiful little village. Throughout the film you observe more than get really involved. Tati always keeps you at a distance, like a stranger.

I liked Mon Oncle the best first run through, but by that stage it was the fourth of Tati's major four pictures I'd seen, so that must have coloured my impression. The most famous is Les Vacances de M. Hulot, and M. Hulot is Tati's famous character, who appears in Mon Oncle, Les Vacances and Playtime. He doesn't appear in Jour de Fete, which was Tati's first first feature-length.

Tati is the Antonioni of slapstick comedy. There's plenty to look at in his movies, as long as you stop waiting for a narrative. None of them have real stories. They do progress, but its more the visual motifs of the various townspeople that develop throughout.

Of the four I'd say Playtime is the least friendly to first-timers.

All copies of Jour de Fete since 1995 feature the imperfect colour process it was filmed with. Its not colourised, that's just the best colour method that Tati had at his disposal in 1949 in France. Even after restoration it suffers from over-brightening and unevenness in colour, and the overall impression is of a bad colourisation, so just be ready for that, and remember this colour version wasn't available until 1995, before that there was no colour, and I think the colour's an important part of the experience of Tati's fete.

I'd recommend you rent/borrow before buying any Tati, so you know what you're getting. Probably youtube won't be the best place: any small segment of his films won't make sense on its own, they're quite slow-paced, and the characters and scenes are meant to accumulate, not be excerpted.

Happy hunting.

Ben