Oprah Movie Club Pick for March: Playtime

1967 comedy

Rating: 20/20

Plot: None really. I guess you could say it's about people in Paris trying to adjust to modern lifestyle.

The world needed more Jacques Tati. There are a few filmmakers who I think make or made the world a better place, and Tati is one of them. Five features (plus one made-for-television movie that I'm reminded I haven't even seen) in twenty-five years just wasn't enough. Playtime's his magnum opus, a film that took ten years to build, but was unfortunately a commercial failure that ended up bankrupting the poor guy. And notice how I used the word "build" there? That was intentional. This is a movie that isn't written and acted out and filmed and then shown to people. Tati wasn't just a filmmaker. He was an architect, he was a poet, he was a painter, and he was a philosopher. And a comic genius, of course. I don't want to forget that one. Regardless of whether or not a person has the patience or the attention span to find a movie like this funny, nobody's going to deny Tati's superb eye. This movie was costly because Tati constructed an entire small city--an ultra-modern Paris dubbed Tativille, and there's this great attention to detail. These are visual gags that don't come cheaply or without meticulous planning. Early scenes are stark, and the color palette consists mostly of different shades of gray, but as the the movie progresses, there's a little more liveliness and color. Word on the streets is that Tati does have something red in every shot, but I'd have to watch this again to verify that one. Cameras move, but only if there's a real reason for them to do it. Most of the shots are set up with precision, perfectly framing whatever Tati wants us to see. The shots are long as Tati abhorred close-ups, and it's really difficult sometimes to even figure out what you're supposed to be focusing on. I've seen this movie three times now, and I'm sure there are little jokes and visual gags that I've completely missed all three times just because I was looking in the wrong place. That's not a criticism of the movie though. In fact, there's something to be said about a movie that you can watch multiple times and have it feel like you're watching a different movie every time. Another thing you notice is the film's sound. Words are spoken in this movie but none of them really seem to matter at all. A lot of times, there aren't even any subtitles, the characters all kind of sounding like Charlie Brown's teachers or something. Indeed, one lengthy scene that shows Hulot visiting one of his three army buddies in his apartment has the camera filming outside of that apartment, voyeuristically showing us the occupants of two to four apartments without letting us hear the dialogue at all. It's all car sounds and other urban reverberations. The sound effects--clicking heels, the opening or closing of doors, noisy chairs, vacuums--are much more important than the spoken word in this movie, and Tati seems to be letting us know just how noisy he thinks modern life can be. The sound effects aren't as comical as they are in Etaix's Yoyo--Tati is far more subtle--but they are used in similar ways. So the director took the time to construct this masterpiece, proving himself adept at framing, color, and sound. Perhaps he's most impressive with the way he uses space in this movie. Even when you know which character you're supposed to be focusing on, your eyes are scanning the screen for other details because you know they're there. Everything seems choreographed, no matter how far in the background it happens to be. At times, characters in the deepest corners of the frame seem like they could become important at any moment. Well, except for the ones who are very obviously cardboard cut-outs, cardboard cut-outs that are sometimes engaged in conversation with real breathing and moving humans. And when characters walk, usually mechanically, off screen, you kind of wonder about them. This is a movie where you often find yourself imagining what is going on just off screen. I also really like how Tati will sometimes shift perspectives on you without warning. You'll be watching a few occupants in a restaurant doing various things, and the shot will change. But then, you'll notice that same group of people in the back of the shot and realize that you're seeing a direct continuation of what you were just watching but from a reverse angle. It's really quite ingenious and hard for me to explain very well.

Let me summarize all of that. Tati's visual and sonic expertise is on full display in Playtime. He constructed Tativille, an entirely artificial fake modern Paris, and dazzles us with the way he uses space, color, shapes, and sound. There are lots of comic visual gags, but they're often so subtle that you might miss them if you only watch this once.

The comedy isn't completely without purpose even though the movie's got essentially no plot and really no main characters. Hulot's around a lot, but he's not in this as much as you might expect. And other than his attempts to meet up with some guy for reasons we never learn, there's really no conflict or storyline. There's a group of tourists including a pretty one who catches Hulot's eye. There's a gregarious American. Yeah, there's just not really a main character. And without a plot, you're forced to just focus on the setting and its importance. This movie can really be broken into six sections with six different settings. There's an airport that, at least initially, you probably thought was a hospital. There's a modern office building with glass walls that often gives you the impression that you're observing the occupants in a fishbowl. There's some sort of convention where people are showing off their modern inventions. There's the apartment building. There's a very lengthy scene with the opening of a restaurant. And there's a final scene at a roundabout that looks like a carousel.

And what do we learn from all of this? Most obviously, Tati is satirizing modern convenience and how often inconvenient it can make our lives. There's also a lot about how modern living can be cold and alienating. Characters in this work hard to meet up or make connections but often fail. With the sterile settings, it seems like this is a commentary on how modern life lacks warmth and companionship. No matter how packed the setting is with characters, some of them still just seem so lonely. Characters also often move robotically, and sometimes they seem to only be there to fit some role for other characters--opening doors even when the doors no longer exist, picking up trash that also doesn't exist, or, in the case of one poor waiter, being cannibalized (metaphorically) by his co-workers. It's also about how all this modernization has taken away our ability to appreciate things from the past, somehow made us less sentimental. Landmarks like the Arc de Triomphe or the Eiffel Tower are seen only in reflections (another great use of space by Tati), and one tourist is fascinated by a dinky flower stand on a corner, probably because it's the only real sign of any life in this city. And there's a shot near the end that shows the reflection of clouds in the sky that also gave the impression that these inhabitants were trapped by their own conveniences and lifestyles, that there's this big endless freedom out there beyond their grasp. This is also about the superficiality and absurdity of some of our modern devices. Check out the oohs and aahs when the guy at the convention shows off his broom with the headlights attached to it. And I think this says a lot about conformity in this modern world. Characters are forced to obey rules, and most of them seem to walk in these harsh straight lines. It all makes the environment feel even more sterile. Hulot has that oddball gait of his, but he's even stuck in ruts. In fact, one running gag involves all these fake-Hulots or mistaken-Hulots, maybe symbolic of how modern society has stripped us of our individuality. The tourist group is kept in order, counted, marched in a herd, shown exactly what they can enjoy or not enjoy. Hulot's brief (tragically brief) love interest is one of the few characters who doesn't really play by the rules, and she seems to be the closest to having any kind of actual experience in this. As the movie goes on, the characters walk in all these robotic ways less and less. In the end, they're dancing like madmen in the restaurant--they even partially destroy the restaurant--and are part of that grand carousel. I'm not sure if the carousel is conformity or non-conformity though. It looks like it's more fun than the office building, but it's still moving with everybody else in endless circles. But people loosen up and start to live a little more chaotically as this goes along. And it's interesting that that's when Hulot and the woman make some sort of meaningful connection. It's impossible to miss that everybody in this movie has the same chairs, too.

Is this movie funny? As I've said, I've seen this three times, and I don't think I laughed once. I came closest during the apartment sequence probably, especially the shot where it looks like a woman is watching Hulot's army buddy being a striptease. But the comedy is definitely memorable--that doorman, the patterns on the restaurant customers' backs, Hulot chasing that businessman's reflection, the dance of those guys carrying that big rectangular piece of glass, the carousel, the doors that slam "in golden silence," the rotating help desk woman, a Napolean spotting, the man quickly-gliding back and forth on his wheely chair to assist customers, a parking meter that appears to play music, the simple task of wiping one's feet turning into a comical dance, those chairs. There's really not another movie like Playtime. Roy Andersson's movies might come the closest, and maybe that's why I like Songs from the Second Floor and You, the Living so much. Tati--as an architect, a poet, a painter, or a philosopher--was as clever and ingenious as any director who's ever lived, and he's at the height of his powers here, able to create comedy that holds that proverbial mirror up to the world and let us laugh a little at ourselves.

I could make a list of movies that I think would work best being perpetually projected on the wall of an art museum. This would definitely be one of them.