Playtime (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Unfamiliar with Tati's movies? Good natured "M. Hulot" goes to Paris' newest modern district for a daylong journey into hi-jinx, sight gags, slapstick and unplanned reunions with old army buddies! Family fun at its best.

For those familiar with the film, the Blu-ray edition is a spectacular improvement over the SD DVD. Seen on a 120 inch screen via a 1080p projector, suddenly the film works as intended. While it goes without saying that a James Bond film is more exciting at high volume on the big screen, it still works as entertainment at home on a modest TV. Playtime, however, only really functions when it's cinematic. Criterion's wonderful decision to release this on Blu-ray makes this a possibility. The film needs size, and size demands HD detail, especially when a joke might be occupying a tiny fraction of the total screen. Some of Criterion's Blu-ray reissues, while terrific films, don't benefit greatly from HD (The Third Man, and even Wages of Fear, come to mind) - but Playtime becomes a different experience. The image quality is excellent - on a par with any colour HD restoration of a film of the period that I've seen (e.g. The Wild Bunch, A Clockwork Orange) - of course, the film elements are 40 years old and Mr.Hulot is not as athletic as Daniel Craig, his love interest tends to wear an overcoat, and (spoiler alert!) there are no explosions. There are no car chases, but there is a traffic jam. So, yes, visually you'll be immersed, but your socks won't be blown into the next room.Tati's creation does not function as a traditional narrative. Often enough different sectors of the framed image compete for the viewer's attention - there is a unique freedom available to the viewer: you can literally choose what you would like to focus upon. In this the film truly approaches the experience of a being an observer in ordinary life. And, a bit like ordinary life, you have do some of the work if you're hoping to find what you're viewing interesting. Perhaps at times you might find yourself bored - but there's room enough in the film to sustain some boredom. You can drift off into your own thoughts and return to the film as you will.Of course the film is filled with surprising observations from Tati himself, and inimicable visual and auditory humour. There's little in the way of dialogue, but the voice of an electronic button, or the background hum in a room, or the noise of the street as the camera voyeuristically peers through a window, makes Playtime anything but a silent movie. Again, Tati offers us the opportunity to not only see the ordinary afresh, but to also hear it anew.Like a great painting, or a great novel, or a great play, Playtime invites you to see the world from a new and different vantage. For all its intellectual and aesthetic verve, Playtime does operate in a limited emotional range. Like its predominantly grey colour palette, the film's emotions are muffled - Mr.Hulot is a little baffled, a little bewildered, yet he remains intrigued and charmed by the world - his distance from the world allows in his comedy - but it's not a comedy that channels any of the grand passions. Frustration, alienation, emptiness, a critique of modernity's soullessness, all this can be contemplated during the film, accompanied by a smile. Love and hate must wait for another day, another film. So while I agree with the many opinions that have Playtime as Tati's masterpiece, and an utterly unique film, I'm also glad there are many other kinds of masterpiece in the history of cinema.

French director Jacques Tati's fourth major film, and generally considered to be his most daring film. It was shot in 1964 through 1967 and released in 1967. Shot in 70 mm , Play Time is notable for its enormous set (often referred to as Tativille), which Tati had built specially for the film, as well as Tati's trademark use of subtle, yet complex visual comedy supported by creative sound effects; dialogue is frequently reduced to the level of background noise. On its original French release, Play Time was acclaimed by critics. However, it was commercially unsuccessful, failing to earn back a significant portion of its production costsIn Play Time, Tati's character, M. Hulot, and a group of American tourists attempt to navigate a futuristic Paris constructed of straight lines, modernist glass and steel high-rise buildings, multi-lane roadways, and cold, artificial furnishings. In this environment, only the irrepressible nonconformity of human nature and an occasional appreciation for the good old days breathe life into an otherwise sterile urban lifestyle. Modern industrial technologies, accepted as necessary by society, are represented by Tati as obstructions to daily life and an interference to natural human interaction.Play Time is a very challenging film. Tati avaids the use of plot and dialogue to make his points. Using a static camera, Tati fills the 70mm frame with visual gags. Critics have called this a film thet the viewer browses rather than views. Tati himself said that the film needed multiple viewings from different places in the theatre before the average viewer would comprehend all of the films levels. I found this to be the case, there is just too much to watch to make this an easy film to sit through. The best method is to pay attention to the details that you want to see and let your eyes wander the frame looking for small bits of action or comedy in the margins. Tati said that if there was a plot it dealt with the supremacy of the curve over the straight line as represented by modern architecture.The BFI release of this film is a good one. It offers the restored version of the film taken from the 70mm negative. The picture and sound quality are excellent. Also offered are a commentary by film historian Philip Kemp which provides good information on both the production and on Tati in general. The disc provides featurettes on the folly that was Tativille, a biographical short on Tati, production notes via a video interview with Tati's script girl and the usual BFI trailers on Tati's films. This is an excellent package and is well appreciated by Tati fans.

It is about thirty years since I watched any Jaques Tati and I resolved to put that right by buying three of his masterpieces.Playtime is unique, original and has touches of comic genius. Tati's shrewd observations of modern day life and hapless tourists racing through their day, time pressed and seeing nothing resonates well with life fifty years on. I thoroughly enjoyed his anarchic take on life. Bought with 'Mon Oncle' and "Jour de Fete' I feel I have gone some way to redressing the balance. A charming and amusing antidote to many modern day films, it has glimpses of a France of yesteryear.

This BFI DVD of the 126-minute restoration (actually 125mins - a full minute is taken up with restoration credits) of Tati's monumental box-office failure is fairly impressive. The colour is good, the extras informative (although the absence of the short film 'Cours de Soir' Tati shot on the set is galling). There's only one real problem - the film itself. It's the very definition of a Marmite movie.It's technically accomplished yet still at times astonishingly bad in its obssessive minimalism. It's not really a matter of finding the jokes unfunny - there are practically no jokes to find, funny or otherwise. Nor is there plot, nor characterization. It's a horrendously drawn-out catalog of nothing. Where some comedies are all set-up and no payoff, this doesn't even have the set-up or, when it does (as in the interminable restaurant scene) it will take a quarter of an hour setting up a not very good gag. I just sat there in increasingly stunned disbelief at how little there was there.The design is interesting, but Tati seems to think that it is enough and never really uses the environment, as if he is at a loss for what to do with his expensive train set. In many scenes he just stands still in a corner of the set while we watch the extras doing nothing. For a very, very long time. And while Tati does fill the screen with multiple characters doing multiple things in multiple areas of the frame, none of them are ever in much danger of actually doing anything funny or remotely interesting.There are the germs of a good idea here and there - the identical posters of capital cities, Barbara's sad expression at the reflection of the Eiffel Tower as she enters the exhibition hall that has become the new staple of the tourist itinery, the idea (but not the execution) of people staring at the same point of the wall housing their TVs in an ultramodern apartment - but like the not funny the first time running gag of various passers-by being mistaken for the mostly absent M. Hulot, they get lost in the surrounding inertia. Only the gag with the doorman and the smashed door is really worthy of the Tati who gave us Jour de Fete or Ecole des Facteurs. The wonder is not that Tati bankrupted himself on this folly but that he ever thought there was anything there to make the risk worthwhile.For Tati completists only.

I saw some of Jacques Tati's films in the past and am most impressive by his works e.g. Mon Oncle and Les Vacances de M. Hulot. Finally I have the chance of seeing his most acclaimed work Playtime. This work is very enjoyable and foreshadows many films inspired by it, such as The Party, The Terminal and even Mr. Bean. The scene that depicts the opening of a new hotel restaurant is absolutely classic. Though it is a bit too long, it would keep your attention to the end.

Fantastic film, very well planned.Something happening all over the place more or less at all times therefore every time you watch it you'll see something new and wonder how you missed it before.Have watched this more than 5 times with different people and they all said they would watch it again :-)

Tati's masterpiece and the one that bankrupted him , this one requires close attention , as the amount of detail and subtlety going on is unbelievable . Every time you watch this , you'll discover more .