36. PLAYTIME (Jacques Tati, 1967, France) [853.27 points; 11 votes; 1 first-place vote; Morbs silver]
S&S: 39 | TSPDT: 49 | BOXD: DNP
MORBS SEZ: "Saw this last night at Lincoln Center; at least my third viewing of the film, but never so eye-popping. I feel like I could go again tonight. I know it's on Criterion Collection, but run to the theater if it ever shows near you. You'll scarcely know what part of the screen to look at during the nightclub sequence. The only other film of its time it evokes is 2001 … Walking the streets around Lincoln Center afterward -- tourists taking pictures, pedestrians crossing in front of buses, everybody seemed to have stepped out of the film. This happens every time; the movie turns urban life into Tativille … as with Keaton, Tati is more about astonishment than laughter to me."Love all the squeaky glass. I saw some old new version at the Walter Reade back in the late 90s. The funny thing was, I had a good friend staying at my house and as I settled in my chair on one side of the auditorium, I was semi-surprised to see her coming in (late as usual) and seating herself on the other. This is not a story of romance, just a story of movie-crazed people. 2001 comparison OTM.
― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, January 5, 2005 12:24 PM
just... magnificent.
― Who Makes the Na'vis? (s1ocki), Tuesday, January 12, 2010 11:09 AM
playtime is probably all-time top 10 for me
― clouds, Monday, September 3, 2012 10:29 AM
You could almost say that Modernism finds its truest expression in 'Playtime'. As so often happens, it's satire which most permanently commemorates the things it's supposedly undermining.
― Momus (Momus), Monday, September 1, 2003 12:52 PM
I finally completed the Hulot cycle (going backwards) about 6 weeks ago. Playtime is the best and actually plays pretty well at home since you keep re-playing bits over and over again. Although, having first seen it in a theatre, you do miss the sheer enormity of some of the shots and set-ups.
― The Wild Shirtless Lyrics of Mark Farner (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, December 8, 2008 7:10 PM
omg I just started watching this last night and I felt like a child. When else has an artistic work been so deeply, breathtakingly beautiful and also so clever and funny at the same time? It has an effervescent magic to it that I just could not even comprehend. It also made me want to watch nothing but Tati and Greenaway and maybe Carax for the rest of my life. And the sound editing, my god!
― police patrol felt the smell of smoke and found that goat burns (Stevie D(eux)), Tuesday, January 12, 2016 2:39 PM
The only Tati I can stand.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, December 8, 2008 7:24 PM
playtime has always kinda bored me...guess I need to give it another shot.
― ryan, Thursday, July 10, 2008 12:17 PM
ugh Tati
― Simon H., Tuesday, January 16, 2018 4:25 PM
Tati's the only thing worse than Chaplin
― Washable School Paste (sexyDancer), Monday, April 10, 2006 11:13 AM
it's not the expectation of funniness that's the problem w/r/t tati and particularly this film. whether i sat down expecting to be impressed or expecting to laugh i'd just wind up, as i always do with him, as a tight little ball of anxiety expanding to pure hatred until the point where i just have to switch it off because it's no good for me. i wouldn't expect it to be funny but it's so completely the opposite of funny to me. if this is proof that it's working then fine but i'll keep it as far away from me as i can.
― jed_, Monday, September 3, 2012 6:39 AM
I also had a poor experience of Tati's supposed masterpiece. I went to see Playtime after a long absence from my local multiplex, a six-screener. I was disconcerted, upon arrival, to find that the place had been subdivided even further. From the escalator I could see individual viewing cabins, open-topped, stretching to the horizon, all painted the same shade of grey. Each one was occupied by a single viewer watching a single film via a head-mounted audio-visual apparatus. Wandering around the premises with my umbrella in hand and my hat and coat still on, I was able to observe a peculiar charade taking place. No sooner was a viewer led to a vacant cubicle by a grey-suited hostess (more like an air hostess than a cinema usherette) and fitted with a helmet than a second occupant was surreptitiously ushered in, a typist or junior clerk who sat at a desk beside the oblivious viewer, making telephone calls or typing. It would seem that the cinema business, in itself, was considered by the new Anglo-American management an insufficient source of revenue. I was soon apprehended by one of the hostesses, who asked me what film I was here to see, then led me to my own cubicle, which was number 12,346. The air-conditioning in this unit was overwhelmingly loud, making the hostess' instructions to me completely inaudible. She had to demonstrate the use of seat-belt, tray table and visor in a kind of dumb-show, by the end of which I had changed my mind about the whole thing. I escaped while her head was buried in the helmet, pausing only to indicate the cubicle to the typist waiting outside. I now became lost in the featureless warren of grey corridors, punctuated only by sleek security cameras which craned to follow my movements. Since the floor was slippery as ice, these became increasingly erratic, and I found myself slithering around, completely out of control. Yet no matter where I slithered, the security cameras craned their necks to watch, like a flock of storks choreographed by Busby Berkeley. It was suddenly very silent in the multiplex, and I became conscious -- slumped on the ground -- of three sounds: the ticking of my watch, the beating of my heart, and the sound of the ripping skin of the banana I had produced from my inside pocket and now began to eat. These sounds were so loud that several booth doors opened and angry customers gesticulated at me, waving me away. I waved back in greeting, only to find strong metallic hands gripping my wrists. A couple of apelike robots escorted me to the emergency fire exit and threw me out onto the helipad (so shiny I could see the Eiffel Tower reflected in it), where a jazz band was playing furiously, welcoming a VIP just then touching down in a helicopter. "I came here to see some Jacques Tati," I mimed to the tuba player, who was playing a deafening series of farting noises, "but this place isn't what it used to be". "But have you seen Playtime?" the brass-player mimed back over the din of the arriving helicopter. "It's a brilliant deconstruction of 20th century Taylorist rationality, juxtaposing the modernity of Max Weber's worst nightmares with 70mm vaudeville routines. Great sound design, too!" The helicopter door opened and Charles de Gaulle himself popped his head out. "Once upon a time there was an old country, wrapped up in habit and caution," he mimed over the din. "We have to transform our old France into a new country and marry her to these times. Are you coming with me?" I shook my head. "No, Monsieur le President," I mimed. "I'm going..." And I looked around and saw, amongst the cubic office blocks, a windmill. "I'm going to that windmill. That's my France!" "That's the Moulin Rouge," smiled de Gaulle. "That's where I'm going too. Hop in!"
― Grampsy, Monday, September 3, 2012 6:42 AM