Playtime

Plot synopsis:
Playtime is structured in six sequences, linked by two characters who repeatedly encounter one another in the course of a day: Barbara, a young American tourist visiting Paris with a group composed primarily of middle-aged American women, and Monsieur Hulot, a befuddled Frenchman lost in the new modernity of Paris. The sequences are as follows:
The Airport: the American tour group arrives at the ultra-modern and impersonal Orly Airport.
The Offices: M. Hulot arrives at one of the glass and steel buildings for an important meeting, but gets lost in a maze of disguised rooms and offices, eventually stumbling into a trade exhibition of lookalike business office designs and furniture nearly identical to those in the rest of the building.
The Trade Exhibition: M. Hulot and the American tourists are introduced to the latest modern gadgets, including a door that slams "in golden silence" and a broom with headlights, while the Paris of legend goes all but unnoticed save for a flower-seller's stall and a single reflection of the Eiffel Tower in a glass window.
The Apartments: as night falls, M. Hulot meets an old friend who invites him to his sparsely furnished, ultra-modern and glass-fronted flat. This sequence is filmed entirely from the street, observing Hulot and other building residents through uncurtained floor-to-ceiling picture windows.
The Royal Garden: This sequence takes up almost the entire second half of the film. At the restaurant, Hulot reunites with several characters he has periodically encountered during the day, along with a few new ones, including a nostalgic ballad singer and a boisterous American businessman.
The Carousel of Cars: Hulot buys Barbara two small gifts as mementos of Paris before her departure. In the midst of a complex ballet of cars in a traffic circle, the tourists' bus returns to the airport.

Tags: psychedelic, humor, boring

Review:
It wasn't and "Play Time" bankrupted Tati, forcing him to sell the rights of all his films for little more than a fee.
The result is a bewildering pastiche of people on their daily do-abouts in modern Paris (the old Paris, like the Eiffel Tower, is only seen through reflections in the glass facades) amidst flickering neon signs, voices through intercoms, buzzers, and through all this, Monsieur Hulot tries to find his way while stumbling across the urban frenzy surrounding him.
I think for most people, it's all a little too much upon first viewing and in many ways it remains a bit of a folly, a director gone mad in making a film no audience was ripe for at the time, and perhaps never will be.
But Mr. Hulot doesn't mind, he goes along with it and enjoys it all the way, just like the viewer.In another Tati movie, Mr. Hulot's Vacation, there is a scene where he's resting on a beach, and his drink floats away with a wave and floats back just as he reaches for it.
Apparently, he created an entire 1/5th scale city outside Paris and shot over the course of three years to get this honey in the can, and man-o-man, does it show.This is the kind of film that reminds a viewer just how standardized modern cinematic narrative has become.
Everything changes, but the spirit of things remain.This he manages to show in a series of beautiful scenes, brilliant observations, in a Paris which has been rebuilt to the extent, where the old Frenchman doesn't find his way around it, anymore, and the Eiffel tower can only be found in reflections on shiny glass or steel surfaces of modern buildings.This is a film language all of its own, and driven to a razor sharp perfection.
Playtime (and nearly all other works by Tati, which are all must-sees), on the other hand, has long sequences with no reason to laugh, and then it hits the audience with a gag (or, in this film`s case, rather an anecdote) - which is only a few seconds long.
Amid the babble of English, French and German tourists, Hulot tries to reconcile the old-fashioned ways with the confusion of the encroaching age of technology.The first time I saw it was on a video tape with lousy qualityand the second time was on Criterion Collection and I thought it was great BUT why could not it be a little bit more funny?????????
You can watch it how many times you want and  still find new things in the film.Also I saw how expensive it was to make.Jacques Tati must have build up a whole town because the set is so fantastic BIG!!!!But when Monsieur Hulot  comes to the nightclub it gets the same old hilarious Tati.Rating: 5/5 Some day I hope that I will see this in 70 mm but untill then Criterion Collection is a good choice!!!!!.
(Modern technology is the golden cow that Tati playfully cuts down to size.)  On the opposite end of the spectrum, however, is a work that stands the art of film on its head, commenting wryly on the nature of human beings, culminating to a party in a restaurant that gets completely out of hand.
Although idealistic and pure in some sense and appreciated for that (consider Philip Johnson's Glass House in  New Canaan), it is often better looked at or visited than lived in.From one viewpoint, the entire film can be seen as a criticism of that architectural school.
While the movie looks fine and dandy on the outside, and features grand cinematography; it feels like an utterly incomplete film with its lack of plot, lack of direction, refusal to edit anything unnecessary, lack of memorable scenes, lack of memorable characters, and overall lack of mercy towards the audience by crafting a 120+ minute movie out of something that could have been told in a mere half an hour.
Jaques Tati has an eye for the camera, but lacks the heart and lacks the edge that allows for him to excel in levels that Chaplin, Keaton, and then Chan achieved; the previous three actor/directors created memorable characters as well as good settings that allow them to compose their magic (in the case of Chaplin it's his bittersweet slapstick comedy, for Keaton it's his timing and slapstick, and Chan it's his fight choreography and incredible physical stunts).Despite what the modern-day critics say, the audience during the 60s had it right when they refused to see it (resulting in the bankruptcy of Tati); they didn't like the total lack of story and the lack of the lead character.
The sets look fantastic (and expensive) and ultimately becomes the most interesting aspect of Play Time, as the audience you are instantly engaged in the area as we see long shot after long shot of the major skyscraper-like structure where most of the movie takes place and the adjacent buildings surrounding it.
Jacques Tati's finest creation is a masterpiece of democratic comedy: a dense, plot less satire of modern times, in which no single character or joke is allowed to dominate.
Every choreographed rhythm, every odd visual juxtaposition, hides a gag, but the audience is obliged to scrutinize each image for the hidden pattern or inconsistency (Tati's camera is so impartial that first-time viewers may likely miss half the humor).The meandering storyline follows a busload of American tourists around an unrecognizable Paris of uniform chrome and glass skyscrapers, moving eventually to a swank nightclub not yet ready for business, where all hell naturally breaks loose.
Hulot, always at the mercy of his environment and never quite able to follow the upended anthill of activity around him.In Tati's vision of city life the last vestige of old-world tradition remaining from his earlier 'Mon Oncle' has been totally eradicated, turning the City of Light into a hectic, synthetic metropolis where even some of the inhabitants have become artificial (look close at the background figures during the trade-show sequence).
After seeing this film at The Egyptian in Los Angeles I looked it up on IMDb to see if I could a)find information about the sets and b)find out why people like this movie.The movie was indeed visually stunning but just because Tati spent years filming on full-scale sets doesn't make it great.
The frames are filled with odd details and actions on the fringes of the screen that you may not catch the first time you see it (or the tenth for that matter.) Certainly the film play better the more you've seen it.
Tati is a master of the subtle joke: a toy airplane slowly melts in the background while characters complain of the heat; a travel agency containing travel posters for different countries, where all the posters features the same modern building.Builders spent three years constructing Tati's sets, and it was time well spent.
He mixes sophisticated caricatures with the most insane world he ever created, all with iconic sets, full size to allow Tati to choreograph the camera effortlessly, without going into the close-up shots that he detested so."All these electrical thingamajigs!" one man gives out to himself early on in the film, epitomizing the subject of the M.
Hulot's Holiday may be better, and Traffic may be more touching, but this has the feel that Jacques Tati had been wanting to make it ever since he started with films..
I can certainly see the appeal and why it has been so critically acclaimed, but after 45 years of culture and cinematic progression, I feel that whatever relevance/edge this film once had has been lost, and many modern viewers will not understand it.The story, as minimalist as it is, features director Tati starring as Mr. Hulot, who has an important appointment in a retro-futuristic Paris but keeps getting lost and distracted through a long series of sight-gags and pratfalls.
I couldn't imagine sitting through yet another half-hour of this poorly-timed, occasionally funny mistake by Jacques Tati.There are some memorable moments in the movie.
And the odd mix of English and French makes me wonder who Tati thought his audience was.Supposedly, this was his view of "Modern" or even futuristic France, but PLAY TIME has a very dreary 60s ambiance that gets wearisome after the first few reels.Having just watched the far funnier and charming JOUR DE FETE made PLAY TIME seem even more lackluster and misbegotten.
A testament to my patience is that I started fast-forwarding at least an hour into the movie.I confess there is much in Playtime that is unique and I could see many things that reminded me of entertaining films like Peter Sellers The Party or Spielberg's The Terminal.
After Jacques Tati made his third feature film, Mon Oncle, in 1958, it took him nine years to wrap shooting on his next project Playtime, having had to generate funding (some of which was personal), and construct an entire metropolitan setting from scratch.
I have not be very kind before for any of his movies because they were subtle comedies that were just being too subtle and therefore worked out as slow and boring ones for me, that just weren't very funny at all.This movie is basically just like Jacques Tati's other work as well, which means that it has lots of slapstick humor but is being a real subtle one as well.
However in this case this movie does everything much better and way more effective, comedy-wise, making this a very pleasant and amusing movie to watch.Just like especially Jacques Tati's previous movie "Mon oncle", this movie seems to criticize a lot and is often being a social satire.
Tati for me is a fantastic discovery.He is a real auteur filmmaker in our modern time.look at the comic scenes he had made in this film, how fresh and unique they are.how deeply he criticized our modern communication even more effective than philosophers,because he declared his ideas with the language of comedy and satire,and this is the fact that makes his films unique and eternal.
The answer is Tati's form.if his works have a simple content,instead his works have a wonderful,interesting form I mean the way he tells his story .and the way he chose is full of gag, sitcom and visual jokes.his silent comedy in the film is great,no dialog, it's all sound and picture,so it's a pure cinema in which, Tati is a real master.In fact Tati's style in comedy is unique,a combination of mime and situation comedy two kinds of comedy that is very weak these days.
Now i want to go straightly to the film and give you some examples that you can understand why I call this, a great masterpiece in comedy genre.the best sequence of the movie surely is the party sequence in which Tati had showed his great talent,if you count the number of jokes he made in this scene you'll wonder.the size of shot in this sequence is long-shot, Tati's favorite size, and we have a long depth of field in which every things in focus.
And there are some moments in which three different comic jokes is in process in the background,foreground and in the mid-ground.this pattern may be hard for the public but if you are a real buff you can understand the main concept of actions.the other point that is important in the film is the creative function of soundtrack,the soundtrack is meticulously designed by Tati and is very rich,as rich as you can't imagine the film without it's soundtrack.it gives you the atmosphere of a modern industrial community and there are a lot of comic imaginary sounds that you can laugh at.
The difference between a world which looks like an endless waiting room and one which looks like carousel, is a matter of how you look a it.Hard to follow, at first (kind of the point, it's like a maze), but once you get to the restaurant scene and the social and technological machines break down, everything comes to life in a big way.If anyone has seen "Last Year At Marienbad", imagine those shifting figures in the garden, crowding through a labyrinth qausi-futuristic Paris (lookout for the Hal 3000 parody), and getting into all kinds of gentle comedic mishaps.
When a wall at the restaurant falls down, a tycoon sits down in front of it, and declares it the "VIP only section".In Johnathan Rosenbaums essay, which comes with the Critereon Collection of this film (thank you CSUN library), he writes, what I think is probably the best description of the film, "It directs us to look around at the world we live in (the one we keep building), then at each other, and to see how funny that relationship is and how many brilliant possibilities we still have in a shopping-mall world that perpetually suggests otherwise; to look and see that there are many possibilities and that the play between them, activated by the dance of our gaze, can become a kind of comic ballet, one that we both observe and perform" The running gag in playtime is that modernity, in all it's forms, is kind of anti-theatrical to human life, or in other words, technology and it's fashions are bad.
Glass walls which give the impression there are no barriers, metallic grays to imply efficiency and technological progress, dull colors to not draw undue attention to yourself in the urban environment, a world designed to look like a waiting room, an airport, or a hotel, someplace familiar and sterile.Anytime anyone tries to use a machine it back fires or derails somehow, while others literally live in glass houses, their lives permanently on display(In one great scene Tatti implies this alienation by showing two families separated by a wall both watching TV, where from the outside it looks like their in the same room, having a conversation, reacting to each others presence.) What makes "Playtime" truly great, is not that it is a clever satire on modern life, but that it finds a way to celebrate the human beings who operate these machines and live through these fashions, not merely to mourn them as passive de-humanized drones.
In Play Time it's not aggressive or delirious, but a work that's as carefully balanced and, dare I say, 'light' that it's like a beautiful deck of cards stacked so high that one piece goes wrong and the whole thing tumbles down.Which makes Tati's film all the more a gamble, and one that pays off quite exceptionally.
Coming off his Academy award-winning film Mon Oncle (1958), Jacques Tati decided that he wanted to distance himself from his charming Mr. Hulot character to focus on something different.
Years later, Playtime continues to be one of the most intelligent, charming, and beautiful comedies ever made.Utilizing large, custom built sets, Tati creates a sterile, cold world full of technological conveniences.
Playtime (1967), written and directed by Jacques Tati and probably one of his most brilliant films, is one of a kind, an amazingly funny movie that drives rather on incidents of comedic value than a funny dialogue-based script.
and, from my experience, a Tati film ought to be seen a couple of times before a ruling, but I must let this comment stand as my primary reaction to Playtime.M. Hulot's Holiday and Mon Oncle are deceptively simple films.
The film commences in its befuddling narrative-void montages of variegated characters in the Paris airport of the vintage time, later, follows a group of American housewives-tourists embarks on their city route, first stop is a futuristic modern edifice of an Expo-esque site for a visit, while incorporating Monsieur Hulot (Tati himself), a well-mannered old man who keeps bypassing the man whom he supposedly should meet.
The restaurant bulk is more lively (both visually and aurally), a masterly farce encompasses minute boo-boos with miscellaneous players, every and each is done with a light touch but effectively strikes a chord with its resourceful wits and humor, and for certain, multiple watching is a must to extensively sense the virtuosity of all the arrangements, slap sticks and the esprit de corps, it is also the dramatic personae's playtime, in spite of that each and every one is bit part, counting Monsieur Hulot.Near the end, Tati culminates his love letter to Paris with a carousel-alike orchestration of vehicles lumbering around a circular parterre, an innovative amusement park metaphor renders immense pleasure through Tati's mojo.The film cost Tati 10 years in debt due to its commercial failure, with only 5 films made through his time, sadly it is a genius filmmaker and comedian who is way ahead of his time and should have been appreciated more.
This is a piece of exquisite artwork created in 1967 by master Jacques Tati who also played Monsieur Hulot the main character (as if I know anything about art).
Why was Play Time a failure, sending Jacques Tati into bankruptcy and costing him control over his life's work of films?
In his earlier movies, Tati was careful to give us small numbers of people with whom, along with Hulot, we could come to know.
The third Film of Jaques Tati with his ingenious Monsieur Hulot character takes us to the final place of science and technology, a vast city build completely in glass and steel (and plastic of course).
I knew about this French film when I saw it listed in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, it was the last in the book from director Jacques Tati (Monsieur Hulot's Holiday), and another follow up from Mon Oncle, featuring his most popular character.
Basically, set in Paris, six sequences structure the story, as in the course of one day American Tourist (Barbara Dennek), visiting with a group of mostly middle-aged American women, and befuddled Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati), the Frenchman lost in the modern city, these two characters repeatedly encounter each other.
Tati found that this was comedy, the older gentleman has trouble with the approaching world.The whole film takes place, as we are supposed to believe, is a 24 hour time period about the lives of M.