School for Postmen, stretched to feature length

“Now that takes the cake”

Already with his debut feature, Jour de Fete, did Jacques Tati establish and introduce his chaotic and unbelievable well-choreographed action, as well as his take and satire on the ideologies of technological modernism in post-war France that he would go on to tackle in pretty much everything else he ever made in his career. This film is really just an extension of his short film, School for Postmen, which came out two years before Jour de Fete’s release, and I think that reason alone is why I believe this film is his weakest effort, because it really is just School for Postmen dragged on for an hour and a half, even recycling some of the same visual gags like the bike peddling by itself and the bike getting caught in the train boom-gate. The first half-hour or so is quite excellent, truly fitting in with the canon of the rest of his filmography with its cute charm and wit, but it just becomes very tedious fast, making the gags fall flat. Still an interesting film with some really interesting ideas going for it, but Jacques Tati would only get more ambitious and bold and striking with each passing film, as the next three in his career so proved.