Jacques Tati, France’s unique master of comedy fi lm, was a loner and did not belong to any school except his own. He kept his distance from other directors and from ideas like the cinéma d’auteur.

Yet his four main features (Jour de Fête, Les vacances de M Hulot, Mon Oncle and Playtime), made with meticulous care between 1947 and 1968, were created almost entirely by him, as writer, director, and star. Tati invites you to see not the comedian, but comedy itself.

That explains why he’s given us the adjective “tatiesque” to describe the delicious absurdity of people behaving... well, as they do!

.Director Michael House explores the life and work of the magnifi cent Tati through clips and interviews with those who know his work best.

Tati is followed from his origins as a mime on the Parisian music-hall stage to his Oscar-winning Mon Oncle, and then tells how Tati lost it all on his masterpiece Playtime. The fi lm culminates with clips of contemporary artists paying tribute to the great man’s work.

Featured are: Sylvain Chomet whose The Illusionist is an homage to Tati, Mike Mills, Frank Black, Professor David Bellos, Marie-France Siegler, Stéphane
Goudet, Gamarjobat, Craig McCracken, Sparks, Macha Makeïeff, Professor Martine Beugnet, mime artists Steven Wasson and Corinne Soum and Tati himself.