Playtime [Blu-ray]

This is probably one of Tati's greatest films, and there is so much going on in it, I will have to watch it again. It is full of wonderful comic details.

A sense of charm that seem of another time and a humorous fear of technology that seems so now.Beautifully structured shots, almost Wes Anderson at times. Observation and physical laughs, fascinatingsoundscapes take the place of words. The accentuated air conditioning noise reminded me of David Lynch.Well worth the watch and an intriguing masterpiece that may not be so accessible on the first watch. Sowatch it over again and the seemless multiple storylines shall become visible and the subtle jokes come to light.Enjoy.

One of my fave French films. Remains charming

This is a review of the 2014 Region B2 Blu-ray from Studiocanal. The film plays in 1.78:1, HD 1080p, and DTS HD Master Audio Mono 2.0. You select the English or French version. The English version (which has some dialogue in English and also in German, as well as French) has excellent English subtitles ~ although dialogue is fairly sparse. The picture is bright and clear, the colours sometimes deliberately muted, but effective.We adore Jacques Tati’s masterpiece, ‘Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot’ (‘M. Hulot’s Holiday’)(1953), a virtually dialogue-free delight, where Tati, as the titular Hulot, creates mirthful chaos during his seaside holiday. Tati’s disastrous postman in the earlier ‘Jour de Fête’(1947), is almost as funny. ‘Playtime’ was made in 1967, as a continuation of the adventures of Hulot, who had also been seen in ‘Mon Oncle’ in 1958. But ‘Playtime’ is a very different animal from ‘Vacances', although it is apparently considered his finest work by aficionados.The joy of ‘Vacances’ is its simplicity and naivety. It is in B&W, and is only quite short, at just under 90 minutes. It is immediately accessible, capturing ideas and images familiar to us all from holidays and family photos. There is nothing complex or obscure.‘Playtime’ at 124 minutes, is however, less simple comedy, and more satire. It takes on a whole sackful of modern urban concepts and takes pot-shots: modern office buildings; airports; cheap foreign package holidays; expensive restaurants; designer decor; sales exhibitions; city centre traffic roundabouts. Many of the pot-shots are successful and very funny. There are some delicious sight gags and also, as we would expect from this former mime artist, some fabulous sound gags ~ for example, there is a running gag with squishy modern chairs. And some of the sight gags are quite inspirational: look out for the model airplane in the overheated restaurant for example, the door handle gag after the restaurant door is smashed, or the traffic roundabout moving to carousel music.However, some of the scenes are less successful, some leave you slightly puzzled as to what the joke is, and others are just far too long. Tati needed to be as good at editing as he was at coming up with brilliantly funny concepts: he has been insufficiently ruthless, and too over-indulgent, with his own ideas.That said, ‘Playtime’ is beautifully shot, in a modernist Paris, with (and here is another running gag) occasional tempting glimpses of the Paris we all love ~ the Eiffel Tower for example. Several of the scenes are brilliantly choreographed, and there is incredible attention to detail. And there is a very sympathetic, bitter-sweet, little affaire. It is funny, and certainly worth seeing. But it could have been so much better, if the whole thing had been tightened up, and perhaps slimmed down to just a few of Tati’s targets for dissection, not an entire army of them. In the end, we’d give it an underachieving 3½ Stars, with occasional flashes of 6 Star genius ~ so near and yet so far.

I have had my reasons for not watching the films of Jacques Tati over the years. I watch all kinds of films like most people. As with other people I have my personal reasons for watching a particular film at a particular time. This time of year it is normally Halloween and horror, but this is a comedy.This film (to a first time viewer), is like the missing part of the jigsaw puzzle between Charlie Chaplin and Leslie Neilsen, or the famous films of the 1960s that everyone already knows about, but hasn't watched this.You could write books about this film (as people have), and it is up there in terms of relevance to the film industry as films like 2001, Citizen Kane or The Grapes of Wrath; whilst ticking all the boxes of going wildly over budget and flopping at the cinema that most film geeks enjoy reading about on the net.The film is obsessed with geometry, and symmetry, with a purpose built set containing office booths, a bus depot, an airport, an exhibition hall and a nightclub surrounded on the outside by tall office buildings stretching into the sky. It satirises modern life, implying that people are robots or puppets of the system, as people leave buses in straight lines to meet appointments or navigate roundabouts in cars like they are on a carousel.The only people to navigate this system or escape it are M.Hulot (played by Tati) and Barbara (played by Barbara Dennek) throughout the whole film. However, there are also a couple of working class bystanders who glance through the circus of life making an appearance once or twice in the film.A couple of standout scenes in the film involve the moving of a glass pane by workmen, or M.Hulot visiting a house to watch TV, but the whole of the film has a similar quality to these scenes.As a viewer, it is always good to see the films that pushed the boundaries of the decades before CGI and Star Wars, (or after), and this is very much the film to watch if you like the films of the '60s.

Perfect Tatti. A great film from the master.

If you are a Tati fan you will,want this in your collection. Full of life and perfect small cameos of people and events. A good buy

One or two laughs. Tati is not so prominent as in the earlier classics, something was missing I felt. Just played it the once so can`t recall many scenes.

One of the great French films.