In his bicycle love fest, Jaques Tati utilizes his postman character, François, to rove around a small French town in order to catch a glimpse of normal goings on. In some ways, it seems like a news reel documenting daily life with inn keepers yelling at the cyclist for brining his two wheeled transport inside, getting in the way of whatever street life is moving about and generally being a nuisance by accident.

Of course, the camera as a device of observation had been previously figured, but occasionally for propaganda - Dziga Vertov and Leni Riefenstahl most famously used the concept for nationalistic purposes. But either way, Tati was interested in the minutiae of daily life and works to detail that in great ever exacting tones over his successive films.

Here in Jour de fête enables the director to render the town as a character with all those bubbling aforementioned characters – some of the me actually inhabitants of the town. Along the way, François’ employment gains greater attention as he and a collegue catch a film that shows American postal works getting the job done in much quicker pacings.

As the two peer into the tent to watch their American counterparts, Tati’s fascination with film as a medium is clearly related to viewers. Even in the forties, film was still relatively new – being birthed as a commercial endeavor towards the tail end of the nineteenth century. There was still an awe exhibited when new techniques came into use – like colorization. And in a bucolic town such as the one used as a back drop for this film, even watching postmen must have been a treat.

Subsequent to watching these scenes, though, François, already given over to troublesome riding, attempts to pick up the pace. Of course, when he runs into trouble, he explains that he’s doing his deliveries in an American style, which none of the town’s people seem to care for too much.

This could be a biting critique of American life – another theme that persists through Tati’s work. But it’s odd that only a few years prior to this film’s shooting, the Americans basically swooped down to help end an international conflict. Of course, much of France and England had been leveled, so perhaps they blamed the impeding forces for the destruction.

Whatever the answer to that is, Tati was able to take the very essence of a town coupled with the most sparse dialogue imaginable (until his later films) and turn in a comedic masterpiece. Essential viewing.