Jour de Fete

I just had a 4 day mini vacation that was like a dream. It seemed to last longer than 4 days ever could. I had a great Bistro experience in Dijon, a city that fulfilled my fantasies of what a truly French Urban Experience should be.
I will write a little about some of the highlites in the next few days.

On the last day we began to drive back from the Berry Region in Central France where we had visited the Home and the country side of George Sand. I took a very scenic route that brought us through many small towns that were location in her novels.
Suddenly I was coming upon the town of St. Severe and I realized that I had found the location of one of my all time favorite movies, Jour de Fete by the great comedian Jacques Tati.

If you are not familiar with Tati and his work, by all means go out and look for it.
He was comedian who used very little words. He kept "character" all the time. He portrayed the common simple French man who found the modern world too alien and could never change to become part of it. He was brilliant physical comic who portrayed this alien awkwardness with absolute grace. The biggest film he had success with was Mon Oncle which was a hit in the USA in the late 50's. His last film was the almost impossible Playtime. A film which can be only really appreciated after multiple viewings, his gags and sets are so obscure and complex. Again, it is nearly a silent film except for the music and the noise of the city and people. He constructed an entire modern urban environment for his gags. The sets were left up and called Tativille for a few years. The film was so complex that it flopped commercially, but iI have to admit, I've seen it 5 times now and it becomes richer and funnier each time.


Jour de Fete was made in 1947 and the main prop is a bicycle. It is the best bicycle film ever made! Most of the gags revolve around the hapless Marcel the postman who goes through a day of trying to deliver the mail during the village festival.
It is the celebration of a passing age. The modern world is threatening around the corner but hasn't actually made its way to little St. Severe.

The film is sarcastically narrated by an very old bent woman who is accompanied by her goat on a leash. It is a black and white film and in the restored version, there are hints of color. An artist paints a watercolor and you see the drawing become colored. The flags and pennants are in color. A glass of cognac is gleaming yellow, these little dashes of color transform our perception of these ordinary sights into touches of magic.

A plot? The town of St. Severe is waking up, a tractor is hauling a load of parts for the booths and the merry go round to set up in the town square. A little boy sees the merry go round horses and runs after the truck.
Marcel the postman sets out to deliver the mail. During the course of the day he gets quite drunk. People have fun at the fete. There are lots of bicycle stunts. Marcel runs into an annoying fly. He has a flat tire and sees a movie in a tent about the efficient US Postal service. He ends up passing out in a railroad car.
The next day, he tries to deliver the mail "American" style and ends up in the river.
The Merry go Round is packed up and the same little boy at the beginning runs after the merry go round horses on the trailer into the distance.

The film is over 1 and a half hours and has maybe 20 lines of dialogue.
It is one of those films I could watch every year for the rest of my life!
I was so happy to drive and walk around the village and discover the sites of the scenes of the movie and found much that hadn't changed in 60 years.