Cinema Atlas Connection

Pierre Coffin has documented his obsession with Jacques Tati — specifically with the way Tati built comedy from physical bodies moving through space without dialogue, using the environment itself as co-star. The Minions' gibberish is an homage to Tati's wordlessness. Their relationship to objects, the way they treat the world as playground, is learned from Mon Oncle and Playtime. Coffin admits this in interviews as the foundational DNA. Both Tati films are on Criterion Channel.