I am so happy that each of the M. Hulot films were released by the Criterion Collection.  Entertaining, fun and a final goodbye to Monsieur Hulot. Highly recommended!
Image courtesy of © 1971 StudioCanal/Selenia Cinematografica (Italy). 2008 The Criterion Collection All Rights Reserved.
TITLE: Trafic – The Criterion Collection #439
RELEASE OF FILM: 1971
DURATION: 97 Minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Color, 1:33:1 Aspect Ratio, French Monaural, Subtitles: English SDH
COMPANY: Janus Films/Studio Canal/The Criterion Collection
RELEASED: July 15, 2008
Directed by Jacques Tati
Original Scenario by Jacques Tati
Artistic Collaboration with Jacques Lagrange, Bert Haanstra
Producer: Robert Dorfman
Music by Charles Dumont
Cinematography by Eduard van der Enden
Edited by Maurice Laumain, Sophie Tatishceff
Production Design by Adrien De Rooy
Costume Design by Jacques Esterel
Starring:
Jacques Tati as Monsieur Hulot
Marcel Fraval as Truckdriver
Maria Kimberly as Maria
Honore Bostel as Director of ALTRA
Francois Maisongrosse as Francois
Tony Knepper as Mechanic
In Jacques Tati’s Trafic, the bumbling Monsieur Hulot, outfitted as always with tan raincoat, beaten brown hat, and umbrella, takes to Paris’s highways and byways. For this, his final outing, Hulot is employed as an auto company’s director of design, and accompanies his new vehicle (a camper tricked out with absurd gadgetry) to an auto show in Amsterdam. Naturally, the road is paved with modern-age mishaps. This late-career delight is a masterful demonstration of the comic genius’s expert timing and sidesplitting visual gags, and a bemused last look at technology run amok.
Jacques Tati, a wonderful actor and one of the greatest film directors who has only created six feature films but watching it today, you can’t help but feel he was ahead of his time. The French filmmaker who saw the Paris that he grew up with becoming a different Paris that is today.
With his Charlie Chaplin-esque character Monsieur Hulot, we would see how Monsieur Hulot would experience the changes of Paris beginning with his 1953 film “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday” (Las Vacances de Monsieur Hulotâ€), which would earn Tati his first Academy Award nomination for “Best Original Screenplayâ€. His third major feature “Mon Oncle†(1958) would be Tati’s first film in color and would focus on the disappearance of the Paris that he once knew and France’s obsession with modern architecture and gadgetry but also American-style consumerism and his fourth major feature, the third to feature Hulot was the 1967 film “Playtime”.
In “Playtime”, Monsieur Hulot, he easily gets lost in the city and leads him to adventures to various areas such as an office building (which he had a problem with today’s modern architecture) as he gets lost trying to get to his meeting and ends up being pulled away to a high-tech trade expedition, a high-tech apartment and then leads him to nightclub known as the Royal Garden. The film culminates with the carousel of cars as Barbara must leave the city and sees almost a carousel/parade of all these vehicles all around her and how all the people react. What we see is a city that has been transformed to a festive, enormous metropolitan playground.
In Jacques Tati’s final film “Trafic” (1971) starring Monsieur Hulot, as Tati would showcase at the end of “Playtime” with the vehicles, the automobiles become the focal point in the movie.
“Trafic” begins with an automobile plant working on vehicles. One of the vehicles is a prototype designed by Monsieur Hulot (played by Jacques Tati) which is an all-in-one vehicle with plenty of gadgetry for those who want the life they would have at home, right inside their car .  And the prototype would be unveiled at an important car show in Amsterdam.
The PR executive, Maria (played by supermodel Maria Kimberly) will drive her own vehicle to prepare the car for the show but all that Hulot and truck driver (played by Marcel Fraval) needs to do is make it to Amsterdam.
But unfortunately, the truck that is carrying the prototype breaks down (continuously). While Maria panics about getting the prototype to the show, M. Hulot plays it off cool as he tries to help the truck driver get the truck fixed.
Meanwhile, similar to other films starring Hulot which feature how society behaves with technology and the modern setting, “Trafic” shows us what people do in their cars while they are waiting in traffic.
While they make their way to Amsterdam, will they get there in time? And will Monsieur Hulot’s cool nature help tame the spoiled Maria?
VIDEO:
“Trafic” is presented in the aspect ratio of 1:33:1 and for its age, “Trafic” looks very good. Because a lot of early ’70s films tend to use not-so-great film to shoot on and either its very grainy or the colors were saturated due to degradation of the film elements, I wasn’t sure how “Trafic” would look. But after watching it, the film looks awesome for its age.  I do hope Criterion considers this for a Blu-ray release in the near future.
According to the Criterion Collection, this new high definition digital transfer was created on a Spirit Datacine from a 35 mm interpositive. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter and flicker were manually removed using MTI’s Digital Restoration System. To maintain optimal image quality through the compression process, the picture on the dual-layer DVD-9 was encoded at the highest-possible bit rate for the quantity of material included
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Trafic” is presented in French monaural. For those familiar with M. Hulot films, you will noticed that dialogue is not so important or is rarely used but for “Trafic” there is some dialogue featured in this film and for the most part, you can understand the dialogue, especially coming from Maria. And also the familiar M. Hulot song is played throughout the film.
According to the Criterion Collection, the soundtrack was mastered at 24-bit from a 35 mm magnetic track and audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss and crackle.
Subtitles are presented in English SDH.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Trafic” DVD comes with the following special features:
DISC 1
- Morceaux de bravoure – (14:29) An episode of the French TV program “Morceaux de bravoure”from January 16, 1973Â titled “The Comedy of Jacques Tati” hosted by Andre Halimi and features an interview with Jacques Tati.
- Le jouranal du cinema – (7:23) An episode of French TV program “Le Journal du cinema” from April 16, 1971 and features the cast of Trafic talking with host Anne Andreu about their experiences making the film.
- Trailer – (2:18) The original theatrical trailer for “Trafic”.
DISC 2
- In the Footsteps of M. Hulot – (51:17) Directed by Jacques Tati’s daughter Sophie Tatischeff, an excellent two-part documentary that chronicles the evolution of the filmmaker’s character and alter ego Monsieur Hulot through archival interviews, footage, photos and clips from many of his films.
EXTRAS:
Included is a 16-page booklet featuring the following essay “Watching the Wheels” by Jonathan Romney.
When it comes to the work of Jacques Tati, there are those who find his work artistic, creative and enjoyable and those who find his films to not be to their liking. But like any work of art, everyone will have their interpretation and opinion of it and the same can be said about Tati films.
For me, the last three M. Hulot films have been humorous, entertaining and I never grow bored watching them because in some ways, these films were created at the time where many cities began its transformation from old to new. M. Hulot films showcases the change of Paris and Hulot being thrusted into a new age of technology and vanity.
As “Mon Oncle” showcased a family wanting to have the modern home, while he lived in an older part of Paris free from its modernization. “Playtime” showcased the people who wanted to work in a modern office setting and live in a modern home and people who were fascinated by the changes. In “Trafic”, may it be what people were inspired by 007 films or perhaps Tati’s thinking that the next step for people will be people living inside their cars. Where they can drive, sleep, watch TV, prepare food, take a shower…everything you need is inside a car.
One may wonder how Jacques Tati would feel if he lived past 1982 and saw how society today, would become more dependent towards technology. I can already picture M. Hulot throwing that iPad or laptop out the window.
But if there is one thing that I love about his films, it’s his observance of people towards technology at the time. From the the couple who purchased a car garage opener that is triggered by sensor lights and eventually the couple being stuck inside their garage. The same with “Trafic” as we see people in their cars, picking their nose and just waiting in their cars during traffic. And in someways, it does make me laugh because for those of us who live in a metropolitan area and are always stuck in traffic, one may wonder how much of our lives are we stuck waiting in traffic and there are many times where I looked around me and watching people either singing, putting their makeup on, talking on their cell phone and like the film, constantly picking their nose.
And like his previous films, yo get the scenes that are carefully staged, the choreographed scenes especially with the vehicles as they wait in traffic or collide with each other during an accident. But unlike the previous films, Monsieur Hulot is less of a klutz or the comedy clown that is always getting in some type of trouble. In “Trafic”, he is the cool-headed one trying to ensure that the car gets to its destination, fetching gas or talking to the mechanics. If anything, it’s the delivery truck itself that is getting into trouble in “Trafic” as it constantly breaks down.
While Hulot is playing it cool and the truck driver is quite amiable about his truck’s weaknesses, we watch PR exec Maria as she is constantly being bossy or annoyed by the truck not making its destination. But its her transformation that because quite interesting because where Hulot and the truckdriver go, she has to be there as well, keeping updates to the rep at the automobile show of what the status of the car’s delivery is. Maria embodies the people we have seen from previous M. Hulot films. She has the sophistication and beauty, she is always with her dog and she drives this small sportster convertible which she drives and realize how close she is to hitting other cars.
But its the opposites that attract that we see how she changes through being around Hulot which was quite to fun to see and in someway, since “Trafic” is the final feature film for Jacques Tati and the last we would see of M. Hulot, the ending was quite fitting.
Is it better than the other previous films? Well, “Playtime” was a behemoth in itself to coordinate and was so expensive that it literally put Jacques Tati’s future film endeavors in jeopardy and more or less would hurt him personally and financially. But it’s a film that although it didn’t do well in the box office, it was highly regarded as a masterpiece years later. Tati put his heart and soul to “Playtime” while “Trafic” felt it was less about Hulot and more about the vehicles and the other two talent (the truck driver and Maria) who were around him. But still, I found “Trafic” to be enjoyable.
And for this DVD release, I found the release to be quite special because as the film would be the final feature film for Tati and M. Hulot, his youngest daughter Sophi Tatischeff would create a two-part documentary celebrating her father’s career and life in 1989. Unfortunately, Sophie passed away in 2001 but the Criterion Collection would do Tati fans a great service by including her documentary “In the Footsteps of M. Hulot” in this DVD release of “Trafic”. So, you are getting both the film and documentary in this wonderful DVD release.
Overall, I am so happy that each of the M. Hulot films were released by the Criterion Collection. “Trafic” is a no brainer for Tati fans to purchase and the remastered film looks very good that I hope the Criterion Collection considers its release on Blu-ray in the near future.
Entertaining, fun and a final goodbye to Monsieur Hulot. Highly recommended!
