Jour de fête

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Jour de fête
Directed by Jacques Tati
Produced by André Paulvé
Fred Orain
Written by Henri Marquet
René Wheeler
Jacques Tati
Starring Guy Decomble
Jacques Tati
Paul Frankeur
Santa Relli
Release date(s) May 4, 1949 (France)
Running time 70 min
79 min (Germany)
Country France
Language French
IMDb profile

Jour de fête (aka Festival Day, The Big Day) (1949) is a comedy from the French director Jacques Tati. Jour de fête tells the story of an inept and easily-distracted French postal carrier who frequently interrupts his duties to converse with the local inhabitants, as well as inspect the traveling fair that has come to town. Influenced by too much wine and a newsreel on the rapidity of the American postal service, he goes to hilarious lengths to speed his mail deliveries aboard his bicycle.

In Jour de fête, several characteristics of Tati's work appear for the first time in a full-length film. The film is largely a visual comedy, with dialogue often reduced to the level of background noise. In spite of this, sound remains a key element of the film, as Tati makes imaginative use of voices and other background sounds to provide humorous effects.

The movie was originally filmed in Thomson-color, a process that became extinct before prints of the film could be shown. As the film could not be processed, Tati was forced to release the black and white version (which features occasional short bursts of colour, hand-coloured by Tati directly onto the frames) that was filmed as a precaution, in case the color process was not perfect. In 1995, the color copy was restored and released by Tati's daughter Sophie Tatischeff and cinematographer François Ede.

The film was shot largely in the town of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre and the surrounding region, and many of the locals played the roles of extras.

[edit] Cast

  • Jacques Tati as François (the postman)
  • Guy Decomble as Roger
  • Paul Frankeur as Marcel
  • Santa Relli as Roger's wife
  • Maine Vallée as Jeannette
  • Delcassan as The tattler
  • Roger Rafal as The hair-dresser
  • Robert Balpo

[edit] External links