Playtime (1967) 126m.
After a decade's absence from the screen writer-director-actor Jacques Tati returned as his popular creation Monsieur Hulot for PLAYTIME, an ambitious project which flopped at the time but was acknowledged years later as his magnum opus. A little more grey-haired than in his previous outing MON ONCLE, Hulot/Tati once again finds himself bemused by the march of progress, where so-called modern conveniences make life less easier than they promise. Set over one day and one night in a city which is nothing like the Paris we've seen in travel brochures, the plotless storyline relegates Tati to a supporting role (the first couple of times "Hulot" appears, it's not even the real article) leaving him to drift in and out of wandering coachloads of tourists. The sightseers are more interested in what's in the buildings than outside of them but ironically the same can be said about audiences who form the cult of this movie. PLAYTIME, like BLADE RUNNER and METROPOLIS, is one of those rare films that has earned a following through its architecture, in this case a uniformly clinical landscape of segmented geometric walls and glass aplenty. In order to get the look of his film right, Tati constructed an entire city block nicknamed 'Tativille'. The enormous cost of this project, and the poor return it generated, ensured he would not enjoy such creative freedom again; he would make only one more feature, TRAFFIC, in his native France.
PLAYTIME can be seen as the middle film in a trilogy of technological determinism, in which Hulot battles with a gadget-filled house (MON ONCLE), a featureless city (PLAYTIME) and the proliferation of the automobile (TRAFFIC). Tati's brand of humor is principally observational and well suited to the medium of cinema, and PLAYTIME is a perfect example of his style. Many gags rely on camera placement (Tati enjoys using mirrors, glass, and reflections) and the frame is often static in order to let us notice everything that is going on within. This is emphasized in one sequence filmed as a frame within the frame, in which we watch people through the enormous window of their street-level apartment. This is a typical Tati setup in that a commentary plays out leisurely and with some subtlety (the joke is that these people are taking on the appearance of mannequins in some kind of 'Better Living' window display) but it also shows his partiality to linger - the gag is staged with precision, as is the rest of PLAYTIME, but it's not that funny, slows down the flow of the film, and could make its point in one minute instead of ten (and in fact a shorter version of PLAYTIME did play abroad for decades before its restoration).
The disorienting lack of close-ups or even mid-shots distances us from the characters and potential involvement in what is unfolding (in one high-angle sequence Hulot may as well be a rat in a maze), leaving PLAYTIME with the risk of being an unfunny disaster. It's a difficult trick to pull off, but Tati manages it. There's a reason that almost all of this film is in long shot: it not only displays the expanse of the setting and element of farce (characters keep entering and leaving the frame) but also allows the idiosyncrasies of the large cast to emerge more naturally. Hulot departs from his usual role as a catalyst of events to instead become just one of many human beings dwarfed by technology, architecture, and order. These constraints finally give way in the most elaborate of all Tati's set-pieces, in which we see a newly-opened restaurant lose its semblance of decorum and become a rowdy affirmation of the human spirit. Ultimately, warmth and personality prevail over glass and concrete. Of course, regular Tati viewers would expect nothing less. The circus-like music and festive trappings of the film's final moments would make most of us quite happy to stay with Hulot and friends for a while longer, even in a place as hyper-orderly as Tativille.
sburridge@hotmail.com
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