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Jour de Fête

Screening on Film
Directed by Jacques Tati.
With Jacques Tati, Guy Decomble, Paul Frankeur.
France, 1948, 35mm, color, 76 min.
French with English subtitles.

The debut feature by Jacques Tati, France's answer to Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, Jour de Fête follows the bungling adventures of a small-town mailman who, after hearing about the efficiency of the American postal service, decides that it is time to do the same in France. His manic new delivery system sets out to modernize but brings about the opposite result: Tati as performer makes cycling along a tranquil country lane as spellbinding as if it were taking place on a high wire. This is the reissued "splash color" version, an early experimental color-film process that Tati shot side-by-side with a 35mm black-and-white version but which proved unworkable at the time.

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