During reading a perfectly detailed review on Jacques Tati's excessive cinematic masterwork, a small, but absolutely talkative example came into my mind what I'd like to share with you this time.
The mentioned and other reviews on the film are approaching from Tati's critical point of view on modernity, more precisely on modern architecture's and modern cities' sterile, alienating, dehumanising contexts (Le Corbusier: "the machines for living"). These contributions are sharing valuable investigations on the co-operation of the visible and audible (Tati's films have little audible dialogue, but carefully integrated sound effects which are participating in the creation of his jokes), on the attributes of Monsieur Hulot's character and its relation to the early silent comedy-stars (eg. Chaplin's physical attributes and moralizing character), on the unbelievable (expensive) sets of the film (he fabricated a huge set called Tativille, based on Paris' recently built (not existing anymore: 1963-1993) Esso-Tower), on the modern technologies, billed as conveniences, which are actually complicate interferences to natural human interaction (my favorite example is the completely silent door, which can't express what the characters feel during shutting it furiously:), in general on criticism about homogenity, standardization, functionality, automatization, ephemerality, unbearability.
All the above are true, but the question is still open: HOW the film's comedic practice is able to deliver all these critical platforms on modernity? The chosen scene tries to exemplify it: the short scene looks like a simple, very-very basic joke, but if we look closer how Tati built up the situation, we'll see that nothing else but the strict environmental shapes become the real protagonist, the real source of the joke.
Notice that the scene starts with a conversation between two characters in the foreground. Their role is to attract our attention, moreover to distract our attention from the glass window behind them (they completely block the view of the doorhandle). They make the way (and our view) free at the very last moment, just before the poor guy runs against the glass. Not only the unlucky character but the viewer can't see either where exactly the glass is. For safety, Tati incases an extra visual trick, namely the overlap between the shapes of the glass door and the building further in the background (plus: the very end a black car arrives to make the door's outline completely visible). See how:
8/10
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