Especially when compared with Playtime, “the masterpiece that wrecked his career,” as Jonathan Rosenbaum so aptly put it, Trafic is easily the least of Tati’s four Hulot films. In the wake of Playtime’s critical and financial disaster, Tati was forced to compromise on many elements of his car-culture satire, especially in the decision to make the bumbling M. Hulot a central character again, rather than the marginal figure he had gradually become. The result is a film that is not truly here nor there, and also one that sometimes displays a surprisingly mean-spirited streak not evidenced in Tati’s other films. (DVD)