‘Watching a Tati movie is a surprising experience. Sound and music are more lucid than words, supplanting the conventional discourse — and boredom — of adulthood. Hulot remains silent, or mumbles, amidst the cacophony of the modern world: beeps, rings, crackles, pneumatic drill, cars, mechanical, electrical and rubbery sounds, the high heels of secretaries and typewriters, factory noises, creaking doors, sighing chairs, machines and technical machines, franglais, vacuum cleaners and the whole range of small appliances, plastics of all sorts, linoleum and formica…
‘Tati delights in our disorientation. Hearing Mon Oncle, Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, Play Time changes one’s outlook onto the world — never again will you perceive the noises of towns and villages in the same way. The modern city is Hulot’s playground — he draws from it a totally new soundscape. Then there’s the organic, the countryside, the barking dogs, the wasp bothering François on his bicycle, the postman falling into the river… Tati masters the art of tempo: not one sound, one note, one silence is superfluous. Pure sophistication.
‘So try it tonight. Put the record on, lie down, close your eyes and listen… Even if you are unfamiliar with Tati’s brilliant films, his footwork and melancholy jokes, and new to Hulot’s poetic, comic perdition, then you’re still in for a trip… From music hall he derived sound effects; from the villages he brought back the funfair and the accordion; from the modern town he pulled music the American way, jazz, certain intrinsically Parisian tunes…
‘Even without the images, it’s still cinema!’