Jour de fete (1949)

Directed by: Jacques Tati | 79 minutes | comedy | Actors: Jacques Tati, Guy Decomble, Henri Marquet, Jacques Beauvais, Paul Frankeur

In the rural French village of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre, a few decades ago, preparations are made for a party. A carousel will be placed on the village square and the flag will be raised. None of this comes without a fight, and it certainly wouldn’t work without a strong man directing the directions for raising the flagpole. The mailman. Because it is he whom we follow, sometimes through the eyes of an ugly old woman, who introduces the events and, at well-chosen moments, provides the story with a sniggering commentary.

This story consists of three parts; the preparations for the party, the party itself and the aftermath. During his daily round, the postman on his way through the village passes the village square where he is asked to lend a helping hand. But at the same time, he also has to deliver a telegram. In the end, half of this ends up in the stomach of a goat, but he still manages to raise the flag despite a pathetic clumsiness on the part of him and, incidentally, also clumsy fellow residents.

In the evening the time has come; there are fairground rides such as knock over cans, there is a shooting gallery and of course the merry-go-round. We hear this music from time to time. The men got drunk and some cafe visitors are having fun with François. It ends that night drunk and with a black eye surrounded in a freight car.

During the party, a film about super mail deliverers in America will also be shown. The whole village is talking about it and François naturally becomes jealous. When he gets up the next day, the showmen urge him to order the mail in his American way. He gets carried away and races past the doors, where in the absence of the residents he finds an alternative receiver such as the thresher and a horse. He is the talk of the town; the American postman.

Until his bicycle takes him for a walk and in the end everything stays the same. Life in the countryside, and certainly for a postman in a small French village, is not suitable for the American approach. After all, only a few still dream of moving forward. A little French boy runs in vain after the departing carriage with the horses of the carousel.

No thigh slap and no slapstick. Although the clumsiness sometimes reminds a bit of Laurel and Hardy’s thin, the humor is much more inventive and subtle. The comic twists are not always expected and despite the slow pace, the film does not become boring. Much simpler and not nearly as eloquent, this lanky anti-hero cannot be called a French predecessor of John Cleese.

The coloring brings a long-lost time to us and makes you step into a different environment where everything was simple and humor is still taken with a grain of salt. Thanks to Tati’s daughter, Sophie Tatischeff, after more than 50 years, we can finally enjoy an original comic classic in color that evokes even a slight emotion. Amusingly classic.