My Favourite Films: Jacques Tati's Play Time

The films of Jacques Tati are among my favorites. I share them with anyone who will spend a few hours on the couch with me! They are a rare treat, and because I consider all of you my friends allow me to introduce you to this wonderful director and actor through, what I consider his masterpiece, Play Time.

Tati, a French filmmaker was born in 1907 and witnessed the radical transformation of our world. His theme is the absurd juxtaposition of traditional Parisian life against the glass and steel and concrete of modernity. His critiques are not merely in architecture, but the very fabric of human interaction. His films are as poignant today as they were 50 years ago.

To capture the sterility of modern Paris and give himself ultimate control over his movie, Tati spent a fortune to build the first few stories of the skyscrapers the action takes place in. His colour scheme is just as deliberate. Blues and greys dominate, making the film at times appear almost black and white. Pops of colour, greens and reds, are rare and draw our attention to these ‘otherworldly’ antiquities.

Play Time, filmed in 1967 is no derivation of this theme. Tati himself plays the main character, Mr. Hulot. Hulot is a man out of time in the modern world. His Paris is old Paris and he looks like a shabby lost puppy in the new Paris, a sterile and labyrinthine maze of shiny office buildings.

Tati’s Playtime is at times a languid movie. One iconic shot is of Hulot showing up to an interview and having a doorman summon his interviewer to a waiting room. Tati does not skip ahead and keeps the viewer locked in time as Hulot explores the waiting room and observes the strange behavior of humans that seem more like automatons than flesh and blood.

Finally! His interviewer is approaching. Hulot leaps to his feet eager, but the doorman hushes him with a hand. The camera lingers for an eterninty as the tiny figure of the interviewer at the end of the hallway makes a laborious journey.

Eventually he loses his chaperone and ends up wandering a maze of cubicles (from the iconic image above!), only to spot his reflection in a glass and leave the building entirely.

At other times, Hulot is caught up in a crowd, pushed along with them away from his destination. He is a man caught up in the absurdity of modern existence!

Tati is joined on screen by a young American woman, Baraba, visiting Paris with a tour group of ladies that look like they just came out of a Gary Larson Far Side comic strip.

She too is carried away by the group. One powerful moment (highlighting Tati’s use of reflection) occurs when she stops to take a picture. The camera only looks at her fumbling with her camera and then raising it for a snap, only to be beckoned away by the chattering crowd of women. The glass door swings shut behind our heroine and we see that she was trying to take a picture of the Eiffel Tower. This and a simple flower stall are really the only bits of iconic Paris that are shown in the film. Those skyscrapers as you’ll note from the travel posters, could be anywhere in the world!

Play Time is a long one. It shifts and flows following Hulot and our American tourist, Barbara, through their day. They are introduced to the newest gadgets at a trade show exhibition hall.

After dark, Hulot visits a friend at his friend’s very modern apartment building. This time Tati uses glass to separate the viewer from the action inside. It is filmed entirely from the street and we watch the lives unfold through huge plate-glass windows in silence.

Near the end of the film Hulot and Barbara come together again at a restaurant on it’s opening night. Tati’s comedy is in full swing as builders race to finish the restaurant even as guests begin to arrive! Chaos ensues and the restaurant begins to fall apart bit by bit during dinner.

Yet as the ceiling clatters down around them, Hulot and Barbara and the other guests find joy in the chaos. There is singing and dancing and the décor that’s fallen from the ceiling becomes an exclusive room for our makeshift party. The trappings of modernity have fallen away to reveal humanities playful nature.

Play Time is a marvelous film that accurately depicted the world to come. At times it can seem oppressive, but there is humour and delight throughout. Anyone who's ever felt out of place in the modern world will love this film! Give it a watch this weekend and come back and let me know what you think! Tati’s other films are just as superb; light-hearted with an indisputable depth and truth about them!

Love,
Renée

all photos are screenshots taken from Tati’s Playtime