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Paris. The future. Full of people in constant movement. Cars driving all around. No vegetation around. Traditional buildings have been replaced with sterile, squared buildings full of buttons and thingamajigs. A future where brooms have headlights and doors make no sound. That is the future that we see in Jacques Tati's Playtime.
The film follows Monsieur Hulot (Tati), a bumbling Frenchman trying to find his way around the city. During the course of the film, he gets lost in a maze of offices while waiting for an important meeting, stumbles upon a trade exhibition full of modern gadgets, meets a couple of friends "from the army!", and spends the night with a group of guests at a restaurant being renovated. During most of his journey, he befriends a young American tourist.
This is my first Tati film and I have to say it was, for the most part, a pleasant surprise. The film has a very loose narrative with very sparse dialogue and little "actual" plot, but is rather a cavalcade of physical comedy, slapstick, running gags, "jabs" at modern society, and clever visual jokes. For the most part, it works perfectly well, as I found myself smiling and chuckling most of the time.
Tati's direction was great all around; from the perspective of building this huge set to how he populates every inch of the screen with *something*. For pretty much every shot, you could look at any corner of the screen and see *something* happening, which I found both amusing and impressive.
I do think that the film runs a bit too long for what it is, and the connection with the American tourist just wasn't there for me. Not that it matters too much in the end, but they do try to amp that up towards the last act. But overall, I had a lot of fun with this.
Grade:
PLAYTIME
(1967, Tati)
Freebie
(1967, Tati)
Freebie
"All these electrical thingamajigs. You gotta be careful with all these buttons."
Paris. The future. Full of people in constant movement. Cars driving all around. No vegetation around. Traditional buildings have been replaced with sterile, squared buildings full of buttons and thingamajigs. A future where brooms have headlights and doors make no sound. That is the future that we see in Jacques Tati's Playtime.
The film follows Monsieur Hulot (Tati), a bumbling Frenchman trying to find his way around the city. During the course of the film, he gets lost in a maze of offices while waiting for an important meeting, stumbles upon a trade exhibition full of modern gadgets, meets a couple of friends "from the army!", and spends the night with a group of guests at a restaurant being renovated. During most of his journey, he befriends a young American tourist.
This is my first Tati film and I have to say it was, for the most part, a pleasant surprise. The film has a very loose narrative with very sparse dialogue and little "actual" plot, but is rather a cavalcade of physical comedy, slapstick, running gags, "jabs" at modern society, and clever visual jokes. For the most part, it works perfectly well, as I found myself smiling and chuckling most of the time.
Tati's direction was great all around; from the perspective of building this huge set to how he populates every inch of the screen with *something*. For pretty much every shot, you could look at any corner of the screen and see *something* happening, which I found both amusing and impressive.
I do think that the film runs a bit too long for what it is, and the connection with the American tourist just wasn't there for me. Not that it matters too much in the end, but they do try to amp that up towards the last act. But overall, I had a lot of fun with this.
Grade: