Metrograph

Tati’s pipe-smoking, tan trench coat-clad alter ego heads out to a seaside resort for a little rest and relaxation—but there’s never much of either on offer when the accident-prone Hulot is around. The spectacle of vacationers working overtime to relax provides a canvas on which Tati paints intricate and ingenious sight gags in this, Hulot’s first big screen outing, a sun-kissed delight that wrings belly laughs from fireworks, a befuddling train station, and uncooperative tennis balls, horses, and cars, all amounting to the “peculiar comic triumph [of catching] the ghastliness of a summer vacation at the beach.” —Pauline Kael, The New Yorker