Jour de fête (1949) - film review

Once a year, the fair comes to the sleepy French country town of Sainte- Severe- sur- Indre.  The locals poke fun at their postman, François, and, having got him drunk, they lead him to a tent to watch a short educational film.  The film is promoting revolutionary methods of improving mail delivery in the United States. François decides that he can use some of the ideas to improve his productivity...

Jacques Tati’s first full-length film, Jour de fête paints a beautifully evocative and detailed picture of life in a provincial French town just after the War.  The film is actually a longer version of an earlier Tati film, L’école des facteurs and is notable for a number of reasons.

Primarily, the film established Tati as one of the great comic legends of French cinema – his films being widely appreciated way beyond the borders of France.  It was also one of the earliest French films to be filmed entirely in colour, although the colour version could not be developed at the time (because of limitations of photographic technology) and has only recently been released.  Luckily, Tati made a black and white version at the same time and this is the version which most people will have seen.

In keeping with Tati’s style, the emphasis is always on the visuals – which affords us some spectacular photography, meticulous editing, and some splendid comic antics.  Dialogue and music are used sparingly, merely to emphasise the visual message.  This is an approach which Tati was one of the few directors to master completely and the enduring success of this film is a testament to his unquestionable genius.

Tati’s impact on French cinema cannot be overstated.  Apart from his own personal success, he had a great influence on subsequent directors, such as François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, the architects of the French New Wave.  Tati’s films remain popular today throughout the world.


© James Travers 2001

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