MINDFULNESS AND MONSIEUR HULOT

Except for some indoor scenes (for example, those set in the hotel’s restaurant), The Vacances de Monsieur Hulot was filmed on location in the small, delightful western Brittany coastal resort town of Saint-Marc-sur-Mer, on the edge of the industrial port of Saint-Nazaire. The seaside Hôtel de la Plage, which appeared as the holiday residence of Mr Hulot, still exists. The beach scenes were shot on Saint-Marc’s beach, which is now known as La Plage de M.Hulot (‘Mr Hulot’s Beach’). I’ve read that the tennis match took place in the garden of the nearby Château de Saint-Marc. Some say the tennis court has gone. However, the little cemetery into which Mr Hulot accidentally drove mid-funeral is still there, albeit now right next to a modern sports centre.

The entire film–like all of Tati’s films—is nothing but a series of largely disconnected incidents and occurrences. One reviewer describes the film as ‘a seemless succession of gently mocking studies of human absurdity.’ So true. Part of the genius of Tati was his wonderful ability to preserve and capture on film the minutiae of the ordinary and everyday, in particular, the sights and sounds of the moment. Who, having once seen the film, could ever forget the ‘thwanking’ sound made by the door in the hotel dining room? Ebert writes:

The French, perhaps more than any other people, understand the truth of that distinctly Gallic epigram, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’). They also know that although life is ‘absurd,’ that is, has no intrinsic meaning, the essence and joy of life is to be found in the charming inconsequentiality of the ordinary ephemeral occurrences of each moment of each day. Ah, c’est magnifique, ça! Mr Hulot’s car backfires … on several inopportune occasions. The doors of the bus close on a person’s suitcase. A dog lies on its side in the middle of the road, sunbaking. Mr Hulot leaves muddy footprints in the foyer of the hotel. Later he fashions a hat from a newspaper. Another man is reading a newspaper. A naughty young boy on the beach uses the sun and a magnifying glass to burn a hole in the canvas of a beach tent. A young Marxist bores a pretty young lady. An middle-aged to elderly woman picks up seashells, one after the other, and hands them to her husband who looks contemptuously at each of them in turn before quickly throwing them away. Another man’s moustache blows upward in the draft. A cute little toddler tumbles, ice-cream first, into the sand. A man is constantly trying to tune a radio … forever without much success. All si terriblement ordinaire, even absurd. Yet all si terriblement important, for such is life.

Mr Hulot throws himself into the content of the moment with an enthusiasm and an innocence that are almost childlike, even if it is to the annoyance of others of whom he is largely oblivious. He fails more often than he succeeds in whatever he does. Nothing ever seems to work out quite like it ‘should,’ except that there are no ‘shoulds’ in his world—nor ours for that matter—because everything is equally important and equally unimportant as every other thing. Everything is ordinary, and yet everything is also extraordinary. Everything matters because whatever is is what is, and there’s nothing else. Yet nothing matters much at all, because all things change and all things will pass away. Only life—whatever ‘it’ may be—remains, for life is nothing other than living things living out their livingness from one moment to the next. Forms, including us, come and go ever so quickly. Life proceeds relentlessly onwards—mercilessly at best.