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A distillation not of Jacques Tati per se, but of communal spectacle and creation—cinema. Stockholm Circus, abstracted into bare spotlights but with the audience visible, "a show in which everyone's invited to participate." Jugglers, acrobats, contortionists, drummers and pratfall artisans, the cinéaste as gentle ringleader, silver-haired in turtleneck and tails. Offhand amusements under the big top, a hockey team benched behind a string quartet, melodies out of hammers and leaky balloons. Beautiful mime routines by Tati, a goalie's boredom and anxiety and peevishness, a tennis match that slips into slow-mo replay, a prizefighter on the ropes and a traffic cop in England or France. The grand show horse is invisible, Bresson's mule is tamed at last by the tyke previously spotted dozing in the gallery. Harpo's horn, Jack Benny's fiddle. Expression and its variations, psychedelic rock as valid as classical violins, yodeling, flamenco undulations and a Scandinavian Edith Piaf. After its gradual disappearance in the modernist landscape of Playime, a happy rediscovery of the human form. The brief evocation of la Belle Époque rests touchingly amidst hippies and cardboard cutouts, the salute to Fellini's I Clowns is returned in Prova d'orchestra. A casual affair for Swedish television, just a slender record of music-hall whimsy that happens to be a profound summarization of a man's life and art. "Thrilling masquerade, world of fantasy, here comes the parade." Video as death and rebirth of film (cf. Godard's Numéro Deux), one final bow before leaving the medium in the hands of the young. Cinematography by Gunnar Fischer and Jean Badal.
--- Fernando F. Croce |