Film: PlayTime
Director: Jacques Tati
Country: France
Released: December 1967
Runtime: 124 minutes
Genre: Comedy
Studio: Spectra Films
Influenced: Wes Anderson, Edgar Wright, Roy Andersson, Michel Gondry, Miranda July
French director, actor and screenwriter Jacques Tati began his career in comedy as a mime artist and later became a successful filmmaker, known for his distinctive style of visual comedy. He wrote, directed and starred in his first feature film Jour de Fête (1949), a comedy about a postman who tries to modernise his small French town with disastrous results. One of my early favourites is Les Vacances de M. Hulot (1953), in which Tati introduces his most famous character, Monsieur Hulot, a bumbling and awkward but lovable man who goes on holiday to a seaside resort. Later on, he would revisit the theme of modernisation with two films exploring the impact of technology, PlayTime (1967) and Trafic (1971), the latter nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Tati was known for his meticulous attention to detail and his use of sound and visual gags to create moments of humour, and he was also a pioneer in the use of widescreen and colour in comedy films. Tati began work on PlayTime in the early 1960s, after the commercial failure of his previous film, Mon Oncle (1958). He was inspired by the idea of creating a film that explored modern life and the impact of technology on society, and he spent several years researching and developing the project. Tati was a perfectionist, and he spared no expense in creating the elaborate sets and complex sound design that would become the hallmark of PlayTime.
PlayTime follows Hulot as he navigates a futuristic Paris that is a maze of steel and glass skyscrapers and highways. The film is largely plotless, with Tati using a series of set pieces to explore different aspects of modern life, from the sterile atmosphere of an airport to the chaos of a trade show. The film was shot by Tati on 70mm film, allowing him to create a widescreen, panoramic view of modern Paris. He also used a variety of lenses and filters to create a hyperreal, almost surreal vision of the city. Perhaps the film's most impressive aspect is its use of sound. Tati created an incredibly complex sound design, with overlapping layers that create a rich, immersive environment. The film is notable for its lack of a traditional score, instead relying on the sounds of the city to provide a backdrop for the action.
Some of my favourite comic moments in PlayTime include the scene in the restaurant (where Hulot and his friends struggle to order food from a waiter who speaks no French), the scene in the nightclub (where a group of tourists struggle to understand the dance moves of the young people around them, a hilarious commentary on generational differences and cultural misunderstandings) and the climax of the film, in which a group of American tourists are mistakenly led through a construction site and end up destroying a building. PlayTime was a critical success on its release, but a commercial failure, and it nearly bankrupted Tati. However, the film has since been recognised as a groundbreaking work of cinema, and its influence can be seen in the work of so many directors and movies.
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