Soigne ton gauche is the third and best known of Tati’s earliest films. Tati’s genius is in total display here. Everything is finely crafted: the authenticity of the natural rural settings, that would be one of the audacious elements of Jour de Fête: the amateurish and improvised nature of things seem like a friendly, inside joke among friends; the solo pantomime of the factory boy, boxing an invisible adversary in the barn is an early expression of Tati’s spirit of repressed combativeness; the sweater with the same striped pattern as Mr. Hulot’s socks; the postman, a picturesque character drawn with an already sure hand; and finally the child-like spirit, seen in the kids who film with a coffee grinder – all embryos of the major themes that he would develop in the future, in this case without any quality of it being an illusory look back. What this film highlights, however, aside from similar details found in future works, is one of the fundamental components of Tati’s comedy, with which he radically distinguishes himself from those who have had the habit of identifying with him. Let’s say, for simplicity’s sake, that Langdon is the poet, Keaton the loner desperately trying to have a life, Chaplin the clown, a little Christ who carries the unhappiness of the world on his feeble shoulders. Tati is first and foremost a sportsman, champion in every category (boxing, fencing, velocipede, canoeing, competitive hunting, tennis, rod fishing, etc.), who dreams of conquering the world and more or less does, never discouraged by actual failure and eternally aspiring without let up to set new records: a record for speed in Jour de Fête; a record for slowness in Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot – basically the same research in the end, maybe of the absolute.
Claude Beylie, Jacques Tati inconnu, “Cinéma 57”, n. 23, December 1957