GManfred This movie was on TCM the other evening and I am glad I caught it. Host Robert Osborne explained that it was tied up in litigation for many years and has had little TV or theater exposure. Coincidentally, it was at the Film Forum in NYC in April, along with 3 other films of director/star/writer Pierre Etaix.As mentioned in my title, he borrows heavily from both Tati and Chaplin, and it is a very successful blend of both. He has lots of clever sight gags of the kind Tati sprinkled liberally throughout his films, as well as the prolonged kind of skit favored by Chaplin. But whereas Tati's characters are primarily two-dimensional, Chaplin's are often fleshed out with heart, and the humor contained sometimes comes with a tinge of pathos. Etaix combines the best elements of both masters and the result is a very thoughtful brand of comedy which draws the viewer in like a vortex.I only recorded this one, but I wish I had recorded the others. His is a unique type of humor which comes with an emotional ingredient I had not seen before in film comedy. It is presented as a mini-saga, for lack of a better term, of a boy who grows to manhood trying to earn enough to restore his father's château. His mother, a circus acrobat, had become estranged from his father years earlier and retained custody of the boy. More than 40 years elapse during the film and Etaix plays both the father and, later, the boy grown up.A reviewer above mentioned that Etaix displayed genius. I would like to see more proof but the reviewer is on the right track. "Yoyo" is a special film from a gifted filmmaker which will touch your heart as comedy rarely does.

gerroll While Tati seemed to love performers this film abuses them, its seriously unfunny. The actors are fine but they are treated shoddily. The film maker seems to want to denigrate live performers. It's inventiveness is not enough salvage it's integrity.. Check out any Tati movie and compare the framing the narrative and the characterization to appreciate how trite this film is by comparison. Oddly it was made AFTER Tati's heyday. One would hope something had been learned. French satire by its very nature is somewhat lame, but this is embarrassing. It's as though Germany had won in 1871 and infected European story telling.

alan-51-111974 I'm 47. It's genius. I have no other words, to say them would be a disservice.OK my review didn't pass the quantity test: I have to write more lines otherwise I can't submit this.Tarkovsky's "Ivan's Childhood" has burnt indelible images into my mind, so did this film.This film also bought me joy. It's very beautiful, very very funny and at times very sad.It's highly stylised throughout, each period of the story is depicted through the cinema conventions of that period (somewhat). The stylisation continues through highly over-exaggerated but incredibly musical sound design and almost no dialogue.The cinematography is stunning, the direction and editing are stunning, the performances are excellent throughout.I may be alone in thinking that this is one of the greatest films but please make your own judgement, I'm happy.

B-rapunSaario *I'm afraid I can't avoid spoilers in this review.I was rather surprised there were no comments posted on this movie. Not many people seem to have seen "Yoyo" nowadays. It is a pity, as I find it a significant one, working on many levels. The director, Pierre Étaix, obviously fancied circus as an art form, but he really kept the circus performances to the minimum in this movie. The movie concentrates on the things the life as a touring circus artist represents; Simple, but free way of living. The movie shows us the development from silent movies to the television era. The first half an hour is silent apart from special sound effects. In my opinion, this is the best part of the movie. It makes fun of the life of the materially fortunate, and some of the scenes are absolutely hilarious, with a whole bunch of servants pretending to take their jobs seriously and their master pretending to enjoy his pointless life.The second part of the movie is no longer silent. It concentrates on Yoyo, the son of the rich man of the first part. Yoyo has spent his childhood in a circus group. He unfortunately sees only the glamor of his father's life and ends up searching happiness from wealth and materia. In the third part, in the television era, we see Yoyo's disappointment to the conventional life of the upper class. The circle of life has been completed, as the son has repeated his father's mistakes and ended up in the situation his father was in at the start of the movie. The simple but emotional (sad) story and the development of movie as an art form, already form an interesting and meaningful entity. But there is more to this movie.The pace of the movie is quite fast, but what really keep the spectator focused are the ubiquitous gags. Nothing really spectacular is seen, but the number and the good taste of the jokes create a warm and amusing atmosphere. Both sad and funny, both light and meaningful, "Yoyo" is a movie for everyone. I'd say the only real problem is the slight loss of integrity towards the end of the film. "Yoyo" definitely deserves more attention.