M. Hulot's Holiday

This film remains one of the most hilarious, affectionate, politely barbed creations. For me it’s a cinematic standard for human comedy.

The most moving vignette depicts a scantily attended masked ball… Just before [Martine] is about to depart, [Hulot] emerges, and they giddily dance around the empty room… He is quite nimble as they skip around the dance floor. It is a short-lived moment, but an exquisite one, showing that the Hulot character, though aloof and oblivious to the world so much of the time, is capable of joining it in full when he discovers someone with the same out-of-step sensibility.

It’s an amiable delight, driven by deliciously absurd pratfalls and practically no dialogue. A mishap with a folding boat is a particular high point – a moment of elegantly executed silliness which nods back to the work of the clowns of silent cinema. Hulot himself is key influence on Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean, but don’t let that put you off.