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Film: Playtime
Release date: 29th November 2010
Certificate: U
Running time: 88 mins
Director: Jacques Tati
Starring: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek , Rita Maiden, France Rumilly, France Delahalle
Genre: Comedy
Studio: BFI
Format: DVD
Country: France/Italy
Many creators have suffered for their art, but few go as far as bankruptcy to succeed. After Jacques Tati made his third feature film, Mon Oncle, in 1958, it took him nine years to wrap shooting on his next project Playtime, having had to generate funding (some of which was personal), and construct an entire metropolitan setting from scratch. Although Playtime is often very physically compact, it might be said that this is the ‘epic’ in Tati’s filmography, if only for the sheer scale of his efforts in creating an artificial ecology of thought, and for the assured methodology behind this fascinating world.
Tati recycles his old faithful heroine Mr. Hulot, and again elects to play the role, wandering around a nameless city and becoming distracted by its populous of tourists, salesmen, and partygoers.
The true intention of his visit to the place, however, is not as leisurely as it was in something like Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, as he arrives at an office tower for an appointment with his business partner, Mr. Giffard. What follows is a comedy of errors, whereby Hulot chases after his partner but – through increasingly bizarre circumstances – is unable to catch up with him. One such moment occurs when a patiently-waiting Hulot moves across the room to study some artwork, only to discover that he has entered an elevator and is promptly taken to the top floor of the building…
When Hulot boards a bus full of American tourists by mistake, he is transported to the lavish nightspots of the city. The rectilinear style of this metropolis, with its simple, clean lines and arresting symmetry, is said to be in France, but feels more like developed American conurbations in its polished extravagance. Tati uses the setting to demonstrate the commercialisation of existence, in terms of how we view ‘home’, and what we want from the places that we visit. Ageing women visit a trade fair and seem genuinely enthralled when a man tries to sell them a vacuum cleaner; whilst brash Americans throw their money around at travel agencies, and are rude at restaurants. Do we want to be catered to, marketed to, sold commodities to invest in, and, if so, is life just a commodity?
Playtime recalls the post-war emergence of consumerism, and how that is fuelled by places like this city, which provide people with a way of surviving through capitalist self-sufficiency. A family’s apartment overlooks a packed street like a high-street store window, and the surrounding blocks have identical layouts. The venues in the city, whether business or socially-oriented, are aesthetically slick but essentially cold, hollow places to be. They have no mark of personalisation, but its inhabitants seem perfectly content to live there.
The lounge bar which Hulot visits literally falls to pieces at the slightest contact, and the showroom feel of the bar suggests that it is meant to be viewed and not touched - its physical properties are irrelevant. After Hulot has dismantled a certain section of the bar, a frustrated woman leaves, claiming, “Every night – it’s always the same.” A figurative remark, this feels like more of a jibe against pristine living spaces and regulated commerce, almost as if these inhabitants are like The Sims (simulations) in the computer game of the same name. They appear to exist as part of this place, as a product of it, than through their own individual needs.
Despite causing things to go slightly off-kilter, Hulot doesn’t garner any blame from the people that he encounters, and can’t affect the systematic nature of this world at all. He seems particularly aloof and enveloped in this picture than in other outings, as Tati spends fifteen minutes navigating a restaurant before he shows Hulot arriving. A touching late bond with a female tourist offers recompense, and it might be that the authorial nature of Tati as Hulot connects with the woman, who asks him how the word “drugstore” is said in French, despite all the signs being in English. Is her cultural awareness an appealing gesture? Either way, it’s a warmer way to end the film than one would certainly expect.
The final scene, too, offers lighter ideas of this place, as a visitor attraction, by transforming menial elements of city life into a veritable cavalcade of funfair rides. The previously drone shade of cars flourish into a multicoloured brethren of vehicles that mount a roundabout and revolve at the same speed like a makeshift carousel. Elsewhere, an ice cream truck halts to open service, and motorised lifts move up and down like mini-theme park rides. Purely and simply, this is “play time,” making light of the heavy formality of city life, in as orchestrated a manner as we’ve seen in ambitious advertisements: “come here and spend.”
If only for the sheer magnitude of what Tati has built and voiced, Playtime is a curious beast to behold. Add to that the unique, interesting ways in which he manages to collate different representations of capitalism; the meticulous, almost real-time approach to telling his story; the rasping social context that he keenly offers, and this is an essential artefact of world cinema. It’s somewhat comforting to see somebody go all-out and succeed, and although Playtime financially flopped, there’s little doubt that it ranks as a gutsy, artistic triumph. CR
Film: Les Vacances De M. Hulot
Release date: 29th November 2010
Certificate: U
Running time: 88 mins
Director: Jacques Tati
Starring: Nathalie Pascaud, Micheline Rolla, Raymond Carl, Lucien Frégis
Genre: Comedy
Studio: BFI
Format: DVD
Country: France
Those reverent of the bane of slapstick British TV comedy, Mr. Bean, may be surprised to learn that the show sprang from much deeper-rooted influences within comedic cinema. In 1953, Jacques Tati followed up his debut film, Jour de Fete, with Les Vacances De M. Hulot, the tale of a man who gets himself into hairier situations than the undeniably popular Bean, yet escapes relatively unharmed. Les Vacances De M. Hulot is less straightforward, and rather a damning social commentary from the director at its helm, but nevertheless uses similar techniques to elicit amusement from its audience.
Mr. Hulot visits the Hotel De La Plage (Hotel on the Beach) for his summer holiday, and immediately ingratiates himself with the locals at the hotel, despite being more than a tad calamitous during his first meal there.
The film then follows him as he journeys with the other residents to various events, such as beach gatherings and firework displays, and finishes when Hulot’s trip has ceased.
The film reads as more of a fleeting montage than a concrete story, but Tati has a lot to demonstrate during the ninety-minute exercise to conserve interest…
Although Tati himself plays the part of Mr. Hulot, he is not cited as an actor in the official credits, which is probably because the film isn’t really about Hulot in the first place. It’s true that he’s a vessel for much of the comedic set-pieces, but Tati’s comedy is more concerned with satirising the mechanisms of society than creating a character that contravenes or alienates his own social standing. When observing the ephemeral chaos generated in the film, one is reminded of Jean Renoir’s The Rules Of The Game, which portrayed the higher classes as clueless, champagne-quaffing bats. The group at the hotel saunter through commonplace holiday activities like clockwork figurines, and their general incompetence towards banal holiday tasks, like collecting seashells and taking snaps, acts as a critique on the uniformity of social tradition.
There are also deliberate attempts to allude to the indifferent philistinism of the group, as Tati intersperses their routine with coverage of political resistance on French radio, and students reciting the work of French philosophers. Young people on street corners profess their love for the music of Fats Waller and Billie Holiday (two musicians who suffered from addiction and died young), before exchanging cigarettes in a matter-of-fact way. The film’s approach reveals a cynical perplexity with regards to the state of society, and the increasing influence of popular culture.
And yet, it manages to say all of this with such an ease of vitality, obvious and cutesy with its humour, but hotly incisive as it dissects the absurdity of social norms. A rambunctious soundtrack accompanies the farcical failures of Mr. Hulot as a sailor, a diner, and a chauffeur, aiding the deadpan, tongue-in-cheek style of Tati’s visual storytelling. A particular highlight is when Hulot utilises a tennis technique shown to him by a girl at the racket club, which renders him an invincible opponent. The overtly simple two-step technique aligns with the abruptness of the film’s comedic charm, as well as its canny, minimal use of sound to generate moments of delightful whimsy. There is little-to-no dialogue in Les Vacances De M. Hulot (and, in truth, it has more in common with pre-talkie techniques at eliciting laughter), but the sound design of the film is undoubtedly one of its most meticulously crafted elements.
This is not to say that much of it isn’t thoroughly assembled and masterfully co-ordinated - from a game of Bridge descending into chaos to an upturned canoe sparking fears of enemy invasion. Tati’s social allegory suggests that we aren’t the principal organisms on earth, that we’re governed by objects and symbols, and by imposed iconography, which means that we can’t deal with the unexplained or loosely-bound. These tourists don’t connect with each other on a personal level, and only serve in a regimental capacity, so as to maintain an equilibrium or sense of normality. A final scene sees Mr. Hulot toss the contact details of a departing fellow hotel guest into the sand; a poignant, apt way of saying that sentiment is easily constructed, and not necessarily as honest or meaningful as one might think.
Les Vacances De M. Hulot is modestly funny and undeniably focused, zipping along with character, style, and an infectiously cheeky demeanour. The stylistic novelty of Tati’s film initially feels like it’s going to be a trawl through cause-and-effect comedy, but emerges as something totally different and eminently more worthwhile. It’s more than an exercise in hazard perception: Les Vacances De M. Hulot is a piquant jaunt through tetchy social terrain, exhibiting all of the hallmarks of an early Charlie Chaplin picture, and packing more than enough of the punch. CR
Regarded by many as Jacques Tati’s masterpiece, Playtime is a surreal comic vision of modern life in which the director’s much-loved character, Monsieur Hulot – accompanied by a cast of tourists and well-heeled Parisians – turns unintentional anarchist when set loose in an unrecognisable Paris of steel skyscrapers, chrome-plated shopping malls and futuristic night spots.
This Dual Format Edition release (featuring the film on DVD and Blu-ray) sees Playtime presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition, and is packaged with an illustrated booklet, featuring a newly commissioned essay by David Furnham and Kevin Brownlow’s memories of interviewing Tati.
Film: Playtime
Release date: 29th November 2010
Certificate: U
Running time: 88 mins
Director: Jacques Tati
Starring: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek , Rita Maiden, France Rumilly, France Delahalle
Genre: Comedy
Studio: BFI
Format: DVD
Country: France/Italy
DVD Special Features:
•
Feature commentary by Philip Kemp
•
Rare audio interview with Jacques Tati recorded at the NFT in 1968, accompanied by stills and images from the BFI’s collections
•
Original theatrical trailer
•
Au-delà de Playtime: Documentary about the making and unmaking of Playtime
•
Script-girl: Continuity Supervisor Sylvette Baudrot on working with Tati
•
Tati Story: Short biographical film
•
Alternative ‘international’ soundtrack (revised by Tati to include more English dialogue)
The film that brought Jacques Tati international acclaim also launched his on-screen alter ego: the courteous, well-meaning, eternally accident-prone Monsieur Hulot with whom Tati would from now on be inseparably associated.
The film is set in a sleepy French coastal resort, which is seasonally disrupted by holidaymakers in energetic pursuit of fun. At the centre of the chaos is the eccentric Hulot, struggling at all times to maintain appearances, but somehow entirely divorced from his immediate surroundings.
Tati’s beautifully orchestrated comic ‘ballet’ is a seamless succession of gently mocking studies of human absurdity.
This Dual Format Edition release, which include both DVD and Blu-ray discs, features the fully restored version of Jacques Tati’s definitive 1978 final cut as well as the original theatrical release version, and is packaged with an illustrated booklet, featuring a newly commissioned essay by film historian Philip Kemp.
Film: Les Vacances De Monsieur
Release date: 29th November 2010
Certificate: U
Running time: 88 mins
Director: Jacques Tati
Starring: Nathalie Pascaud, Micheline Rolla, Raymond Carl, Lucien Frégis
Genre: Comedy
Studio: BFI
Format: DVD
Country: France
Special Features:
•
Alternative ‘international’ soundtrack (revised to include more English dialogue)
•
Original theatrical trailer
•
Richard Lester interview: the acclaimed filmmaker discusses Les Vacances de M. Hulot with film historian Philip Kemp
