Traffic

Tati’s second-to-last feature as a director was Monsieur Hulot’s final holiday, and conventional wisdom says that it’s a minor film. It’s true that it’s not an achievement on the scale of his 1967 masterpiece Playtime, but Tati’s unparalleled gifts for the sight gag were never more in evidence. Here, he finds ample fun in a nose-picking montage, a woolly dog and the funniest pileup since Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend (1967). Few directors have demonstrated such mastery of framing or sound. The movie also boasts a certain structural symmetry: It begins in an auto factory and ends with the world’s most perfectly packed traffic jam. Extras include a TV interview with the cast and a second disc featuring a documentary on the Hulot films.