Les Vacancies de Monsieur Hulot

‘I fell in love with France through this film,’ says Tati biographer David Bellos. With the eccentric and clumsy Monsieur Hulot, who amuses, annoys and amazes the tourists in a French holiday resort, Tati not only created his cinematic alter ego in 1953, but also a wonderful ode to the great silent film comedies of Keaton and Chaplin: comedy and charm arise from the lovingly drawn characters and their behaviour in the eternal struggle with the pitfalls of technology. (Florian Widegger)