Jour de Fete

Jacques Tati was a mime artist before he made his first full-length feature film Jour de Fete in 1949 and it shows. Originally a 15 minute short it demonstrates a gentle form of humour with very little dialogue. Shot on location in a small French village in both colour and black and white it was not until 1995 that it was possible to release a colour print. Tati plays the Chaplin like Francois the local bike-riding postman; some one i would not be keen delivering my DVD’s! A lesson in timing and harmless fun to watch but it’s not clear why a hunchbacked old peasant goat woman (played by a man) was used to commentate and narrate the story?