Trafic

Jacques Tati’s final film finds his onscreen persona, Mr. Hulot, trying to drive from Paris to Amsterdam for an international car show to display his company’s comically-equipped camping car. Along the way he meets with typically disastrous results.

Hulot is like a bumbling silent movie comic stumbling through a too-fast modern world. The humor relies almost entirely on the visual. Indeed, Tati’s character looks a little like Buster Keaton playing Raoul Duke – gangly limbed, inspecting the world through a pipe as if he were some disoriented, unwitting time traveler.

While not Tati’s best work, there are still plenty of ingenious moments. One sublime scene features an apocalyptically convoluted multiple car collision, which prompts the vehicles’ drivers to wander about the street in existential daze.

Grade: B+

Trafic is currently available.