Playtime (1967)

Comedy | 155 minutes / 120 minutes (ingekorte versie)

3,58 428 votes

+ My vote

3 comments

Genre: Comedy / Drama

Duration: 155 minuten / 120 minuten (ingekorte versie)

Alternative title: Play Time

Country: France / Italy

Directed by: Jacques Tati

Stars: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek and Rita Maiden

IMDb score: 7,8 (28.893)

Releasedate: 16 December 1967

Playtime plot

Third part of Tati's Monsieur-Hulot series. Monsieur Hulot has to meet an American in Paris, but he gets lost in the modern architecture. When he ends up with a group of American tourists, he decides to take them through the city.

Full Cast & Crew

Actors and actresses

Jacques Tati

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Trailer & other videos

Trailer Playtime

Marshall Harvey on PLAYTIME

Playtime - Behind the Scenes

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3 comments

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3 COMMENTS

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Onderhond

87585 messages
12832 votes

2 April 2018 at 22:52

What a hassle.

I hadn't seen anything by Tati yet, I think this is his most famous work. I looked at the abbreviated version, but that seems to be the standard these days too. Somehow I am not sad about it, because after more than two hours it was really more than enough.

You can't say Tati is a follower. Playtime is a film that radiates a certain individuality. Not so much in terms of the theme, perhaps, but in the way it is portrayed. It's the kind of movie where you mainly expect love it/hate it reactions.

The soundtrack is perhaps the most striking. Nervous music and a lot of playing with ambient noise. Voices are often muffled and reduced to mumbling, while smaller sounds are just magnified. It is therefore a very noisy affair for two hours. Something that matches the acting and the theme.

However, it is of the genre of thick wood when sawing planks. Exhausted vision of the future with the well-known chatter about people who are busy and rules that make everything more difficult instead of streamlining things. Chaplin already knew nothing to do with it, Kubrick tripped over it and Tati also does not know what to do with his vision of the future.

Didn't find the humor particularly funny either. There may be a lot of movement in the image, but there is actually relatively little to see. Jokes are usually bland, characters rather rude. There are some decent running gags in there (like the waiter outside getting more and more scruffy), but those are the exception rather than the rule.

It is that the film has a certain individuality, but otherwise I found it mostly annoying. In terms of humor, in terms of noise and in terms of subject matter. Not the best introduction to Tati.

1.5*

Translated from Dutch · View original

klara

814 messages
20367 votes

19 November 2019 at 21:33

A long time ago I read in the VPRO guide that a letter writer gave the 5 star rating in the magazine

elitist pomposity or something like that. I love the movie, for me the best

Tati. In which Monsieur Hulot this time, with his well-known, curious, comic motor skills,

being pushed in all kinds of situations at various settings. Clown's Adventures of

a lost loner in the wonderful world of modernization, probably an indictment

of the director against technological developments (The film does not awaken in this regard

definitely positive). Visually there is more to enjoy in this film than in Tati's others

movies that are purely cinematographically more limited, while I think the joke density here too

is higher, especially at the last in the restaurant, with an exquisitely orchestrated chaos and you

sometimes falls short.

Tati's unique work cannot be compared with any other director, the only one who

who comes a bit close is contemporary and compatriot Pierre Etaix, as well as Tati with

a small number of films to his name. Unfortunately I would say, because as far as I'm concerned there are

countless more such films are made.

Translated from Dutch · View original

Fisico

10039 messages
5398 votes

17 January 2021 at 18:22

Hard to rate movie for me. I didn't like it much in the plot. Was there actually a plot and what did it lead to? Conversations were often reduced to a buzz and created the same feeling when you even pass by as a passer-by, but you do not want to and cannot understand the numerous conversations around you. Instead you get some nervous music that should bring everything in a light frame.

Visually a gem. Mostly enjoyed the many tight frames, sometimes cold and distant, but often also very appropriate and a feast for the eyes. Modernity and technological innovations were also central and what was not always progress for the main character. At the same time a lot of hustle and bustle and chaos, because the world in the company is not the same as outside or in a restaurant. Appreciation for the film, I may have to rewatch it later to discover additional elements.

Translated from Dutch · View original