Yoyo (1965)
Directed by Pierre Étaix

Film Review

Were it not for a disastrous distribution deal, which prevented any of his films from being commercially exploited for three decades, Pierre Étaix could well have spent most of his life basking in the same level of esteem as France's other comic genius, Jacques Tati. A slip of the pen consigned Étaix to obscurity in the 1970s and since then his name has figured as no more than a faint footnote in the history of French cinema - until the mid-2000s, when the legal wrangling over distribution rights was resolved and Étaix's films were finally cleared for public showing.  Recently restored to their former glory and now widely available on DVD, these forgotten gems look set to resurrect one of the lost heroes of French comedy.

Like his mentor Tati, Pierre Étaix made only a handful of films, but each of them is a lovingly crafted compendium of sight and sound gags that offers the most affectionate tribute to the great clowns of the silent era of cinema.  Étaix has been dubbed the Buster Keaton of French cinema, but there is as much in his art to connect him with Charlie Chaplin and Max Linder, although, across his short series of films, he manages to forge his own distinctive identity - the forgotten clown who, thankfully, is forgotten no more.  The precise, gentle comedy of Pierre Étaix invites not just admiration, but also genuine affection.  Sweet but never mawkish, acerbic but never cruel, his films are packed with as much humanity as humour, and will move you as much as they will make you laugh.

Étaix was pursuing a successful career as a clown, performing in circuses, cabarets and music halls, before Jacques Tati hired him as an assistant and gag writer on Mon Oncle (1958).  He then appeared in front of the camera, in a small part in Robert Bresson's Pickpocket (1959) before turning to filmmaking himself.  His second short, Heureux anniversaire (1962), won him an Oscar, and he received an equally prestigious accolade, the Prix Louis-Delluc, for his first feature-length film, Le Soupirant (1962).  It was then that Étaix made what is widely regarded as his masterpiece, Yoyo, a film that is arguably cinema's fondest tribute to the silent era and the sacred art of slapstick.

In this film, Étaix plays two characters, a millionaire and his grown-up son who becomes a comedic superstar.  The story begins in 1925, so appropriately Étaix adopts the conventions of silent cinema, the only sounds employed being exaggerated aural effects used for comedic effect.  This part of the film is uncannily reminiscent of Michel Hazanavicius's film The Artist (2011), although Étaix is far more successful in capturing the ethos of the silent era - the heightened emotionality (exaggerated but never phoney) coupled with an appealing unpredictability and anarchic sense of fun. A troupe of flapper girls wildly dancing the Charleston provides a musical interlude between some of the film's most memorable gags, the best of which shows the millionaire taking his treasured poodle for a walk in a chauffeur-driven limousine.  This, together with the sequence in which hoards of ruined brokers rain down on Wall Street amid the turmoil of the 1929 Crash, would not be out of a place in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

The style and tone of the film are subtly altered when the narrative shifts into the era of sound cinema.  The plot fast-forwards and Étaix now appears as a famous clown, who is soon tragically encumbered with wealth and celebrity.  Rather than killing off Yoyo's career, television has made him an even bigger star, but fame and fortune do not equate to happiness and a wistful sense of melancholia cloaks the film as Yoyo is drawn further and further away from the milieu he loves.  The face of Yoyo's smiling clown, a recurring image in the film, becomes a symbol of sad regret, for a past that is slipping away.  Yoyo may be rich, an important society figure, but he is as miserable and lonely as his father was at the very start of the film.

Fortunately, the unexpected appearance of an old friend rescues Yoyo from his arid life and he is transported back to his erstwhile carefree existence, to carry on the life he was born for: to make people laugh.  The film's bittersweet ending mirrors the fate of Étaix himself.  After directing a documentary entitled Pays de cocagne (1971), he gave up filmmaking and returned to the life of the itinerant clown with the Pinder Circus.  From time to time, Pierre Étaix made a return visit to cinema, most recently appearing in Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre (2011), but the restoration and re-release of the incomparable comedy jewels he himself directed in the 1960s have thrust him back into the limelight, and not before time.  Étaix will probably never overtake Tati as France's greatest comic talent but we can at last talk about them in the same breath.  One minute the yoyo is lying forgotten on the ground, the next it is flying high in the air...

Film Synopsis

A reclusive millionaire is languishing in boredom in his opulent château when, one day, amidst a travelling circus, he recognises an old flame. She has a son, Yoyo, who, it transpires, is the millionaire's son.  Having lost his fortune in the Wall Street Crash, the millionaire joins the circus and leads a contented life with his new family.  Ten years later, Yoyo has become a world famous clown.  With his newfound wealth, he decides to restore his father's dilapidated château.  But Yoyo's new life of wealth and privilege does not suit him and he decides to return to the only world where he can be happy - the circus...