Playtime (1967)
Directed by Jacques Tati

Film Review

The film that torpedoed Jacques Tati's filmmaking career, effectively marginalising one of France's most inventive and daring film directors, Playtime is now almost universally considered to be a cinematic masterpiece and a work of immense creative vision.   With its ambitious sets and striking cinematography, the film paints an initially disturbing picture of technological progress but then goes on to show how human beings can adapt and survive in such an apparently dehumanised world.

Playtime follows directly on from Tati's previous film, Mon Oncle and shows a Paris that has been totally transformed into a soulless metropolis of glass and steel.  In spite of this, American tourists still flock to the city, to take photographs of skyscrapers, reassured that the place is not too dissimilar to what they have back home.   Not everyone is comfortable with this technological utopia - and Monsieur Hulot seems to have more difficulty than most in coping with this new way of life.  Although Hulot does not have a large part in the film, he serves to emphasise how alien this future world would be to a contemporary cinema audience.  The endless metallic corridors and huge open spaces dwarf the bumbling Hulot has he struggles vainly to come to terms with this dehumanised environment.  Homes have been converted into something akin to shop windows, with their owners proudly showing off their possessions and lifestyles to passers-by.

In the second half of the film, the mood begins to change and, rather like a slow thaw, we start to glimpse signs of humanity oozing out of this colourless cold setting.   Hulot meets an old friend and then finds himself in an upmarket nightclub, which gets livelier as the night progresses.   The moral is that no matter how inhuman their surroundings become, human beings will always remain human and, when they come together, can find a way to enjoy life.  Tati's viewpoint is, as ever, one of sublime optimism, although he reveals this only after having scared us with his chillingly cold vision of a future dominated by bland uniformity and a militaristic lack of individuality.

For those who hate modern cities and adore cities like Paris, the film paints a depressing picture of the future.  Here we may glimpse, perhaps in our mind's eye or in distorted reflections in glass doors, distant images of the Arc de Triomphe or the Tour d'Eiffel, but, in truth, all that remains of the old world are picture postcards and a few rare street peddlers.   Not only have the French monuments vanished, but it looks as if the French language is heading for extinction.  With typical Tati-esque irony, the film's title Playtime (used in place of Récreation) reflects the French people's eagerness to adopt English words to appear sophisticated.  By doing so, of course, they merely hasten the demise of their own language and serve as willing participants in the creation of a future world of bland uniformity, without any cultural diversity.   "What is the French for drugstore?" an American tourist asks a Frenchman.  "Drugstore" is the immediate response.

Playtime is stylistically a very different work to Tati's previous films, and it this possibly which resulted in its lukewarm reception on its initial release.   The comedy is noticeably more sophisticated, less burlesque, than in, say, Les Vacances de Monsieur Hurlot, and the fact that Hulot plays a comparatively minor part in the film may have disappointed many spectators.   There is also far more content crammed into Playtime than in Tati's earlier films.  Try to absorb all of the detail in the Royal Garden scenes and you are most likely to get a migraine.  It is simply impossible to absorb the amount of information in this film in a simple viewing - it demands at least three or four viewings, and even then there is always some new surprise awaiting the spectator.  In Playtime, Tati pushed himself further than he perhaps realised into refining his technique, perfecting a form of art which no cinema audience had seen previously or will probably ever see again.  The critic and filmmaker François Truffaut best summed this up in a letter to Tati:  "It is a film which comes from another planet where they make films differently. Playtime is perhaps Europe of 1968 filmed by the first Martian filmmaker".

Playtime took almost three years to complete and was released a decade after Mon Oncle.  Whilst it achieved some degree of success in France (attracting around one million cinema goers), it came nowhere near to recouping its monumental production costs (estimated at around ten million French francs).  The result was near-bankruptcy for its director, who had used up his own savings and borrowed heavily to finance the film.  For the rest of his career, Tati was no longer the master of his own destiny - he had far less control over his subsequent films and had to surrender the rights of his previous films to his creditors.

The main expense for the film was its extravagant location set, a miniature city representing the future Paris.  Occupying a site of 15 000 square metres, the set, nicknamed "Tativille" took over 100 workers five months to build, and it included mock-ups of two full size tower blocks.  Before filming was completed, the set was badly damaged in a storm, incurring a cost of around a million francs to effect the repairs.

When the film initially failed to attract cinema audiences, the distributors compelled Tati to make some drastic cuts to the film to reduce it to a more acceptable length.  Various cut versions of the film ended up in circulation, and the original print has since badly deteriorated.  Thirty years after the film's initial release, the film was painstakingly restored by director Jérôme Deschamps and Tati's daughter Sophie Tatischeff.  Released in 2002, the restored version of Playtime was received with glowing reviews across the world.

Jacques Tati sacrificed literally everything he had to make Playtime, which he believed would be his greatest work.  Unfortunately, as was often the case in his career, Tati was years ahead of his time and his genius was not fully appreciated until after his death.  It has taken nearly three decades for Playtime to acquire the standing it deserves, one of the greatest films in cinema history.

Film Synopsis

Paris is not what it once was, as a party of American tourists soon discover when they arrive in the capital.  To their disappointment, the city has become just like any other they are familiar with.  The old landmarks have long disappeared, replaced by characterless tower blocks that betray nothing of the city's remarkable history.  Here and there, there remain a few lingering memories of what Paris used to be - an old woman selling flowers in the street - but these are fast fading from view.  The City of Lights has become the City of Concrete, just another faceless modern metropolis.

Monsieur Hulot is too preoccupied to waste time lamenting the death of Paris.  He is busy trying to find an important head of department in a modern office block.  Unfortunately, all of the rooms and passageways in this miracle of twentieth century architecture appear identical and the poor man is soon completely lost in a monotonous labyrinth from which there seems to be no escape.

Finally, Hulot ends up at an exhibition that is showcasing the latest gizmos that no household should be without.  These include a door that makes no noise and a broom with headlights.  Ah, progress is a remarkable thing.   His spirit not entirely broken by the day's events, Hulot then heads off to Montmartre to attend the opening of a prestigious new restaurant, the Royal Garden.  There are always bound to be some teething problems at any such event, but on this occasion things prove to be more chaotic than usual...