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The Man In The Hat sets off from Marseilles in a small Fiat 500. On the seat beside him is a framed photograph of an unknown woman. Behind him is a 2CV into which is squeezed Five Bald Men. Why are they chasing him? And how can he shake them off? As he travels North through France, he encounters razeteurs, women with stories to tell, bullfights, plenty of delicious food, a damp man, mechanics, nuns, a convention of Chrystallographers and much more, coming face to face with the vivid eccentricities of an old country.
Imagine a mashup of Pierrot le Fou and Jacques Tati as directed by someone who’s seen all of Wes Anderson’s films multiple times, and you have The Man in the Hat. It’s an odd mixture of whimsy and melancholy, with not much happening and even less being spoken. It’s not exactly Indiana Jones and the Last Croissant, though several scenes are devoted to watching people eat. It’s somewhat boring, but cinematographer Kaname Onoyama makes the French countryside look gorgeous. It’s good to see the usually dour Ciaran Hinds, a huge favorite at Chateau Noir, get to do something lighter than usual—even if some thugs are chasing him after he accidentally witnesses their dumping a body. Stephen Dillane, another favorite and…
Have you ever tried to make a soufflé and it collapses in front of you into a gooey mess? That’s what The Man in the Hat is: a film so light and inconsequential that it fails to fully form. It’s practically wordless so there’s no dialogue to enjoy; the characters barely develop, so there’s little to draw you in; there’s next to no tension; and very little by way of structure. I guess it is trying to be Tatiesque, but it lacks Tati’s style. It’s also a little like Elia Suleiman’s films, but without his political and absurdist sensibilities. What remains here is a slight and amiable premise about an oversized, and somewhat gormless man travelling around the bucolic south of France…
The Man in the Hat really shouldn't work, after all the protagonist is virtually silent throughout the film and the premise for his lovely road trip - avoiding balding men in a 2CV - is a fallacy. However there's nothing more beguiling than a road trip through rural France - its villages and its countryside - in a Fiat 500 that goes so slow that it struggles to overtake a cyclist. It's slow cinema full of quirky characters, fabulous music, verdant vistas, melodic interludes and mimetic dreams.
The Man in the Hat is silly and funny, filled with irony, tenderness and joy with a dollop of melancholy, whimsical empathy and the delightful Professor Schmetterling (tr. "Butterfly"). I just want to live where he is drinking wonderful wine, eating fabulous food, basking in the sunshine and enjoying transcendently relational company...
I'm in a stage of my life where I am constantly busy and constantly thinking. This movie allowed me to be transported to another location and just enjoy where the story was being taken. "I miss them all". The main character was an emotional, lonely man who wanted to interact, feel, create emotion, enjoy life. The story line was odd, the characters were weird and the landscape was wonderful.
It’s a bit like PlayTime in that Ciarán Hinds’ character is a Monsieur Hulot-type who guilelessly wanders into other people’s stories, but without any of the charm and style of Tati. Rural France as a setting is bucolic enough and there are plenty of off-beat characters to find amusing (my favorite was the recurring surveyor duo who continually found themselves pining for one another at the end of a tape measure), but the film’s also just a tad too in love with itself. Its identity is wrapped up in these characters — and I can understand Hinds running into the woman on the bike and the “mob gang” over and over — but for every other bit character to show…
If you were ever curious as to how a Mr. Bean movie might play out were it directed by Bertrand Blier, The Man in the Hat has you covered. In a wordless performance, Ciarán Hinds is the behatted bloke of the title, a tourist of ambiguous origin who is enjoying some seasoned asparagus outside a waterfront café in the sunny south of France when his meal is interrupted by the arrival of a bunch of mobster types piled into a Citroën Dyane. The men remove what looks like a body wrapped in black bags and unceremoniously toss it into the sea. Spotted by the men, TMITH promptly hotfoots it away and takes off in his comically tiny FIAT 500 (which…
