"What I love about Tati is that the things that are funny are always secondary, not on the surface. In American comedy, you build up to the summit of the joke, and the joke is the central element. But Tati has a unique type of humor that always leaves a place for the viewer. If something isn’t funny for you, you don’t have to laugh, and that’s all right. You might even pass without noticing. The antipode of this attitude for life is American stand-up comedy. Here you are permanently directed—there’s no way out; you have to laugh and there might even exist recorded laughter in case you didn’t get it. Tati is the exact opposite. His comedy just unfolds as things actually happen in life. His situations are so direct and clear, you don’t have to be witty or have a sense of irony or sarcasm to get them; you just have to have a sense of observation."

"In general, I’m not a big fan of French New Wave films, and Touki bouki is clearly inspired by their characteristic fragmented, slow-moving, alienating quality. But the world of Touki bouki is so beautiful and engrossing that it sucks you right in. When the cows come toward the camera in the opening shot, you know immediately that these cows have been color-coordinated to within an inch of their lives. I love this kind of super-deliberate film where each frame could stand on its own. Even the piles of garbage are perfectly composed. Mambéty’s visual sense of humor is terrific: the man trying to break up a fight between two women only to get beaten up himself, the taxi driver running away in his yellow socks, Mory in the paddleboat with the lecherous Charlie. The main characters, Mory and Anta, never ask for our sympathy, because they are too cool for us."