Playtime (1967)

Directed by: Jacques Tati
Written by: Jacques Tati, Jacques Lagrange, Art Buchwald
Starring: Jacques Tati
Rated: NR

Jacques Tati is little known outside of Europe, but he is without a doubt one of my favorite of all directors and a curious beast to write about. There simply isn't anyone else quite like him and therefore not much to juxtapose him to. Having only made four films there isn't much even of his own in which to compare individual films. Even still, his boundless imagination and the painstaking efforts he took to execute some of the most elaborate and clever scenes I have ever watched make him something special, and "Playtime" is the crown jewel out of his very small collection of gems.

"Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot", "Mon oncle", "Trafic" and "Playtime" all star Tati as the bumbling M. Hulot, a blissfully hazardous old man in his iconic overcoat-tweed-hat-umbrella ensemble, who inadvertently reeks micro-havoc wherever he goes. In the last and greatest of the four films, M. Hulot finds himself in the swirling new world of modernized, industrialized Paris, the city playing host to a gaggle of chatty American tourists. The first half of the movie follows him as wanders a labyrinthine convention where the latest and greatest new gizmos are on display. The second half shows the opening night from hell, where an ultra-chic new restaurant tries to maintain a cool face as the building is falling apart right below its feet.

Tati practically ruined himself with this monstrous commercial flop, having spent obscene monies constructing skyscrapers to fulfill his vision of the technological absurdity of modern Paris. I mean, the man practically made his own city for this film and nobody went to see it. God did they miss out. For months he toiled choreographing jaw-dropping and hilarious sight and sound gags, the likes of which rival or even trump those of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

Consider an opening scene: M. Hulot is scheduled to meet an American official for some undisclosed purpose. He steps into a vast glass building full of cubicles, and with perfect precision, coordinating dozens and dozens of extras on a complex set, the two continuously miss each other for minutes on end. They open doors when they need to be opened, arrive in booths just in time to answer phone calls, and all the while there are no takes and the director is in the midst of it all playing his character. It's staggering.

Others are more subtle yet equally amusing. A long setup to a very small joke involves two couples living in adjoining apartments. The camera sits on the street looking into the rooms through wall-sized windows with only a small wall separating the two. Two families sit down to watch television, seemingly looking at one another. When the families go to sleep the father on the left apartment begins to undress which the woman in the right apartment continues to watch TV. Because of the camera angle it appears as though she is watching him striptease for her.



When I first saw this movie I was thoroughly confused as I had had no previous introduction to Tati's work. It was only about forty minutes in that I fully began to understand the nature of the piece and by that time I had missed so many crucial jokes. If you do watch this movie--and I absolutely, 100% recommend that you do--watch his other three films first. As a collective they tell a story, you understand his humor better, and a personal arc in depth and storytelling emerges, even if it isn't immediately apparent.

At first "Playtime" seems like a comedy, and I suppose that in most ways it is. But there is also a great sadness to it. M. Hulot is like an old friend to me. He appears on screen and can't help but smile. I have realized over multiple viewings of all of his work that Tati needed an affable character to front his films because they are quiet cries of alarm over a changing landscape of France. Hulot is the whimsy and the romance of Paris that is all too quickly being swallowed up by an unforgiving modernization taking root. The statement may be a bit overblown but that really doesn't diminish the point he is making.

When you watch Tati's work you will immediately discover that he manipulates sight and sound to draw focus through a dizzying barrage of action on one particular object or conversation. It may not be funny, it may not be relevant, and that's the point. It is only when Hulot encounters technology or a sudden change that he creates mayhem. When he is allowed to stroll the streets and puff his pipe he blends seamlessly with the world around him.

There is an exuberance in his work that comes from a man who really loves the little things in life. A finely-dressed gentleman walks down the street with luggage that contains his flight tag. As he walks and talks importantly the tag flutters in the breeze and suddenly all we can hear is the sound it makes. The man becomes unimportant and all that's left is a little inanimate object that played an valuable yet thankless role in someone's life for a brief moment.

The overarching theme to it all is that we spend so much time fretting about, advancing and speeding up and making things efficient, that we forget to take that moment to breathe and appreciate that we are alive. There is goodness in the world that we would be able to see if only we stopped caring about petty nonsense. After all, what's the good of making things more convenient for us if we don't stop to enjoy the extra second we have saved for ourselves? Every time I watch a piece by Tati I feel a wave of restfulness wash over me, for it is gratifying to have an affirmation that life is good and really truly worth living every once in a while.

Although I do sense a very deep undercurrent of despair in this film it does have a happy ending. At the end of it all, the world keeps turning. And maybe all that chrome and steel, glitz and glamour is just a facade. When you think about it, the swankiest restaurant of new Paris turns out to be nothing more than cheap glue, bad wiring and all of the faults that come from doing a bad job too quickly. The people who attend, however, have a wonderful evening, and when the sun comes up what's "really Paris" emerges and all is right in life.

4/4