joshua1988 | 1.4 GB
| 29 Downloads
| 3 months 24 days
Jacques Tati as the famous Monsieur Hulot who curiously wanders around a high-tech Paris, paralleling a trip with a group of American tourists. Meanwhile, a nightclub/ restaurant prepares its opening night, but it's still under construction...
At the time, "Play Time" was the most expensive French film ever made. Tati built an enormous set outside Paris, that included an airline terminal, city streets, high rise buildings and traffic circles, that was soon dubbed "Tativille". Three years in the making, experiencing numerous setbacks and financial difficulties and combined with Tati's perfectionist way of filming, the project could only have been saved - financially that is - if the film was an enormous success. It wasn't and "Play Time" bankrupted Tati, forcing him to sell the rights of all his films for little more than a fee.
Tati shot the entire film in medium-long and long shots, not one close-up. The result is a bewildering pastiche of people on their daily do-abouts in modern Paris (the old Paris, like the Eiffel Tower, is only seen through reflections in the glass facades) amidst flickering neon signs, voices through intercoms, buzzers, and through all this, Monsieur Hulot tries to find his way while stumbling across the urban frenzy surrounding him. The film is virtually dialog-free, and mainly serves as background noise. When watching a film by Tati, you expect Monsieur Hulot. Well, he is present in almost every frame, but he is nothing close to a real character, which is probably one of the reasons audiences didn't connect with the film. On an another level, the sight and sound gags abound. It's not particularly funny in a laugh-out-loud sense, but each viewing seems to reveal a new unseen joke or small detail, a funny sign or a person in the background, not seen before. Most of the gags only work because they are part of a carefully orchestrated ensemble. At the core, the kind of humor is the same as in "Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot" or "Mon Oncle"