L'école des facteurs

While I feel that a knowledge of Tati's entire oeuvre would be necessary to comment appropriately on his genius for physical comedy, this short is a fine introduction to the hallmarks of his style.

His gift for physical comedy is underscored by an understanding of the nuance and rhythm of motion, and how it portrays character. Underneath it all is his unfailing warmth for the beauty and simplicity of the human community -- at least the community where our familiarity with our neighbors carries the sweetness and lyricism so lost in the icy excess of the modern...and post-modern.

The scene where he enters a cafe and dances to jazz music, along with a few other couples who happen to be in the cafe, is masterful. The postman's joy in dance, in motion, and, most of all, in the spontaneous, is the stuff of genius.

What's more, it's great entertainment.

You may also marvel and wonder at just how he technically accomplished the shots of the postman's bicycle riding itself. My opinion is that Tati was a remarkable artist and the 20th century was graced by his presence beyond its merit.

Tati did more in less than half an hour here than most film artists will accomplish in their career.

In this short film - a sort of character study for the later full length feature 'Jour de Fete', Tati plays a postman who has to operate more efficiently to meet a new schedule. The way in which he tries to speed up his round while still sticking to all the human interactions that come with being a postmen in the - still rural - setting of a small French village in the mid of the 20th century. Tati's physical slapstick is simply delightful. His humour is never rude or degrading to anyone involved but merely wonders about the intricacies of human interaction. He has an incredible talent for showing us what this is *really* about and is disarming in his directness and honesty. Especially the dance sequence in the café brings my mind to a halt every time I see it ... there are no words to really do it justice.

Jacques Tati is very funny in this short film. Most of the scenes are used again in «Jour de fête» (1948), a full feature film.

François (played by Tati) is the local postman somewhere in rural France. He wants to be as fast as the American postmen!

Very funny movie that reminded me of some classic Chaplin performances from the 20's.

Out of 100, I gave it 80. That's *** on a four stars rating system.

It's the rounds of a bicycle mailman, carrying the letters and small packages the people on his route receive, done the Tati way, with a blithe disregard for the wearying modern methods that bring speed but no pleasure. In other words, it's the sort of movie he would make at feature length.

Tati is usually held in such esteem by those who know his work, that in fairness, I should say I don't find his work funny. That is not to imply it's not good or even great, but his work seems to me more on the order of nostalgic musings, pleas to stop and enjoy the oddities, like a bicycle that knows its rider's habit so well that it can run his route without him, and stop at his favorite cafe.

Tati's work had not reached its later levels here. He's more concerned with the gag and punchline and the reactions of others - although more the youngsters than his nominal superior. Even so, this is a bright, offbeat short that should please Tati's fans and amuse those with twenty minutes to spare.

It is one of the best early work of Tati. You can find all the gags of 'L'école des facteurs' in 'jour de fête' but I think that the timing is better in this one. It is in this piece that you realise how perfectionist Tati was.