I believe that people do not do justice to Etaix's "Yoyo". The endless comparisons to Tati are only partly justifiable.Etaix embarks on a serious quest with this film. To portray life. Not only a branch of life - filmed with the utmost care for the smallest, microscopic detail; filmed to make us realize and appreciate the little things; filmed to make us laugh when the endless combination of detail assembles a film of comedy; like our dear Tati loved to create; BUT life itself - filmed with the philosophical and saddening need to show it in its macroscopic beauty and horror: Love, Beauty, Wealth, Poverty, War, and Suffering. The joyfulness of this film is just a wrapping for the serious content within:Father who lived a luxurious life in a villa, is sad, and dreams of love; Yoyo who lived a poor life as a circus clown, is also sad, but dreams of wealth. Later in the film they both acquired their dreams there, where the other had thought to have lacked it. However the ending portrays something else. Yoyo rides an elephant into a swimming pool and the pool turns into circus. Maybe one of the oldest lessons, found also in the Bible, that wealth will not make you happy? Or maybe for each viewer his own ending.This film is a drama. And its images affirm this. Many scenes and the melody that is played throughout the film, really underlines the overall beauty of this work. "Yoyo" is truly a piece of art. I loved this film and I must say I did not expect it to be this heart touching while making me laugh at the same time. I believe Etaix should not be solely discussed along others like Tati, Chaplin, Keaton, Marx brothers etc. Because then "Yoyo" will not be appreciated fully; and solely as a comedy "Yoyo" is not that good either. I cannot say whether Etaix should belong alongside with Bresson, Gordad, Truffaut, Renoir, Resnais etc. But I can surely say that he is not far off.

The films of Pierre Etaix are pretty much unknown today, having been tied up in a legal dispute for decades. It was finally resolved in 2007, and they've been restored and reintroduced within the last few years (Criterion's nice box set was released in 2013). Yoyo is perhaps the best regarded of them. It is a fine French comedy. Somewhat reminiscent of Tati, but it has its own charms. Etaix stars. At first he plays a lonely rich man in 1925 (it opens as a silent film), who uses his extravagant wealth to distract himself from missing his true love (Claudine Auger), a circus performer. She returns with his clown son, Yoyo, in tow. After the stock market crash, Etaix joins his girl and their son in the circus act. The film soon skips ahead to WWII, where Yoyo, now an adult clown (also played by Etaix) entertains troops and hopes for better times. The plot on this one is very loose, and the comedy's not always laugh-out-loud funny, but it is very amusing and entertaining throughout. It's also quite lovely at times. It seems that this Etaix person is an actual discovery.

squeaky shoes, drawers, carts, etc. much like "The Artist" minimal dialogPierre Étaix co-directed one of Jacques Tati's great hits, "Mon Oncle" and I noticed that many folks think his style is very close to Tati's--which it is. However, and this is very important, if you don't like Tati's film, you'll probably not be particularly fond of "Yoyo". The film looks a bit like the recent film "The Artist" combined with Tati as well as Chaplin. Many love this, it's true. I didn't. I just felt that the pacing was extremely slow and the film lacked energy and fun.The film begins with a bored, rich guy (Pierre Étaix) in a huge house. He seems to have no interest in anything and eventually you learn it's because he's lost his love--a woman who ran off to be in the circus. This portion of the film is very much like a silent film--with very little dialog and VERY over-exaggerated sound effects. I thought it rather annoying when you hear almost explosively loud squeaking shoes and sliding drawers. It was supposed to be funny...it wasn't. When the stock market crashes in 1929, the bored rich guy sells off the contents of his house and goes in search of this lady love. They meet and tour the country entertaining--along with her son (the rich guy now realizes he has a kid), Yoyo. Yoyo is a small and very talented clown and when he grows, he is ALSO played by Étaix. He moves back into the empty mansion and restores it to its old glory--but eventually it turns out he's pretty bored and the home is emotionally empty.If you like mimes and Jacques Tati, then by all means watch this film. Otherwise, for me, it just wasn't particularly interesting. While it had some very nice sight gags, I just didn't care one bit about the characters--a serious flaw.

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.