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Confused and accustomed to progress and technology...
A phrase that is still very relevant today, but Tati had already intuited it back in 1958, when the inevitable race for progress was taking its first steps, especially in the form of social, economic, and cultural revolution.
A world in turmoil ready to conceive new ideas, products, and things aimed at satisfying the individual, laying the foundations for the greatest invention of the twentieth century: consumerism.
It is with these foundations that Tati builds his story; we are in any French metropolis, split between tradition and progress.
The difference is clearly marked by a dilapidated wall that separates a typical working-class neighborhood where the most important thing is the human component, which instills in the viewer a familial and nostalgic warmth.
On the other side, we have a new neighborhood built on the ruins of the old one, where everything is sterile and cold, all allegorized in the automatism of every gesture and interaction.
The link between these two worlds is Monsieur Hulot (played by Tati himself), portraying a typical Frenchman with a trench coat and a baguette under his arm, he often visits his nephew Gerard who lives in the modern neighborhood, from here a thousand incidents arise that contrast the two worlds, underlining and allegorizing the uselessness of technology (the unnecessary kind) and the belief in the need for it.
A nostalgic look to the past and a more worried one to the future, hilarious scenes that with a few frames strike and make you reflect, all always revolving around in a somewhat naive and tragicomic manner of Tati.
A must-see...
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