Playtime Poster

Playtime (1967)

Comedy  
Rayting:   8.0/10 19.5K votes
Country: France | Italy
Language: French | English
Release date: 4 April 1968

Monsieur Hulot curiously wanders around a high tech Paris, paralleling a trip with a group of American tourists. Meanwhile, a nightclub/restaurant prepares its opening night, but it's still under construction.

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diac228 4 November 2008

This is what happens when you spend so much time crafting the setting you forget that you have to put a story in as well. Play Time is another example of Tati's inability to mesh his visual skills with communication skills (does it kill you to interact with the gosh-darn audience!?!?!). 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. Come to think of it, there really wasn't a lead character. There wasn't a plot either, well, sort of. The movie follows tourists roaming around a technologically-advanced but emotionally-deprived Paris. The movie is split into five parts, with the insanely-long restaurant scene taking up half the movie. The rest of it are sequences of the tourists, and especially the main character Mr. Hulot having trouble adapting to the world he is visiting. The standout quality of this movie is the setting, which took years to build and perfect. Kind of like the architectural version of 2001: A Space Odyssey, it predated the lifeless buildings and plethora of spacious cubicles that we now see everywhere in businesses of America.

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. The sound effects of Play Time are also ahead of its time, and they add to the ruptured realism of the soulless society surrounding the cast of characters.

The irony is, the film itself (which is about a lifeless assortment of buildings in an emotionally dying area) lacks any spice and life itself. What on earth did we learn about the characters? How did they develop? What did they learn? Did WE as an audience take away anything from this film? There was such a lack of Mr. Hulot, its almost pathetic to consider him the lead actor at all. The entire movie was a test of your patience as what you saw was not a film, but a man with a camera showcasing what he could do with a lot of money, what he could create with enough funding. Okay, the city looks great Tati, now what happens in it? 125 minutes later, you still don't really know. In Mein Onkel, you at least had some memorable characters doing memorable scenes and at least had some funny interactions as well as good scenery. In this movie, there just isn't much heart and just isn't that ability for you to sympathize with what's going

Spectravideo 26 February 2014

Fmovies: Playtime is probably one of the best movies that is the most difficult to like. That's because it's very strange. Masterfully directed and photographed, but with a story that is as elusive as a greased snail. Long scenes, often with no apparent content or meaning, makes it difficult for the viewer. If you look closely, you'll notice little details that you love to giggle at, and one would more or less involuntarily make interpretations of what is really happening. Monsieur Hulot, who figures in Tati's films (Tati himself), pops up here and there in the film to a backdrop of a newly built and modernized Paris. There are certainly several interpretations of the basic plot, but my own is that Hulot represents a type of man who feel alienated in this increasingly technology-dependent world, where greyness and rectification is taking over and people are getting increasingly further apart. Hulot stumbles aimlessly about in this newly built world and messes things up most of the time. You get the feeling that all these career -seeking , money-driven people around him are unhappy and most of all looking for company. They grab onto Hulot in different situations, seeking contact, maybe because he is the only true original. The long restaurant scene is an example of how our true nature is revealed when the alcohol loosens the shackles of conformity and we begin to act like people. The orchestra, playing relaxed jazz in the beginning, gets more primitive the longer the evening goes, and eventually making the guests dancing like monkeys. No one is satisfied until half the restaurant has collapsed. The end is sad in an elusive way - it's like social progress has already dictated how we should live. The old, simpler, more human life lies behind us and will never come back .

ggfinn 18 September 2003

Others have commented about Tati's artistry and his sense of humour. I won't add to that.

One thing that many seem to miss is the physical setting for virtually the entire film, which is in and around international-style architecture. Tati continually pokes fun at it, demonstrating how inhumane much of it is in practice. 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. It may be the only film that concentrates its energy on architectual criticism.

Zach Campbell 7 January 2001

Playtime fmovies. The only other movie I know that is as profound and beautiful and challenging as this is Tarkovsky's "Stalker." But "Playtime" may prove to be a better, more accessible example of what films can do. Tati so radically deconstructs space and depth within a film that it is almost unrecognisable: Spielberg doesn't have this level of craftsmanship, and not even Kubrick ever did. Virtually dialogue-free and spryly paced, "Playtime" works on nearly any possible level.

It can be seen as simply a superficial comedy, and as that, it succeeds because it is, well, very funny. (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. It's so beautiful.

Words really don't do justice to this movie. One last thing: The big screen is the ideal medium to see this film; that's true of every film, but this one more than most others. Unfortunately, I haven't had this privelege, and if you don't either, rent it anyway. It's too good to be missed.

anton-6 29 September 2001

The endearingly clumsy Monsieur Hulot as the principal character wandering through modernist Paris. 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 quality

and the second time was on Criterion Collection and I thought it was great BUT why could not it be a little bit more funny????????? Then the third time I understand it:It´s ART. 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!!!!!

neotek-2 13 February 2000

This is the right movie for anyone who is tired of "modern" comedies. Aside from its stunning visuals and extremely clever use of sound effects (the film has nearly no dialogue), its humour is highly intelligent, not always obvious, and i must say that i was delighted to see a film that did not try to be funny all the time. This is to say, most other comedies put gag after gag after gag, but to do so they usually stretch one gag for too long. 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. So its not for fans of Austin Powers or Dumb & Dumber, but nonetheless very, very funny. 9/10

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