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Playtime

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Playtime (1967)

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Reviews Counted: 30

Fresh: 30

Rotten:0

Average Rating: 8.6/10

Runtime: 2 hrs 4 mins

Genre: Foreign Films

Synopsis: Jacques Tati's spectacular cinematic art reached its peak in the gargantuan achievement of this film, PLAYTIME. Marking the third appearance of Tati's Mr. Magoo-like character, Mr. Hulot, PLAYTIME... Jacques Tati's spectacular cinematic art reached its peak in the gargantuan achievement of this film, PLAYTIME. Marking the third appearance of Tati's Mr. Magoo-like character, Mr. Hulot, PLAYTIME takes as its subject modern technology and its sometimes disastrous and always hilarious effects on the people living within it. As in most Tati films, a minimal plot (the parallel paths of Hulot and a group of American tourists), is held together by a seamless ballet of visual, aural, and conceptual gags. Tati constructed an enormous set, Tativille, rendering a high modern contemporary Paris decked in chrome, mirrors, and glass within which the surreal slapstick of PLAYTIME unfolds. Filmed in 70mm Technicolor, with sound recorded on a seven-channel stereo, the film approaches the city from a bird's eye perspective showing the complex yet abstract machinations of people and their technologies, with each character linked to the other and the whole ensemble dependant on the giant grid of the modern city. Objects, people, and sounds vie for the viewer's attention and all exert equal fascination and comedic power in the circus of Tati's modern life. From the airport to the high rise to the nightclub, Hulot weaves in and out of view, leaving a trail of bumped heads, offended sensibilities and curious glances in his wake. [More]

Starring: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Jean Luc Montante

Starring: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Jean Luc Montante

Director: Jacques Tati

Director: Jacques Tati
Screenwriter: Jacques Tati, Jacques LaGrange
Producer: René Silvera
Composer: Francis Lemarque

[See More Credits]

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Release:

May 22, 2001

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for Playtime

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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An extraordinary combination of observational comedy and technical virtuosity.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
04/27/09
Tom Dawson
Channel 4 Film

Pic takes to the 70mm process with an extraordinary impressionistic outdoor set of a new Paris, and is an observant romp during a one-day stay of a group of tourists.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
03/26/09
Variety Staff
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Comic choreography, nimble filmmaking and trenchant jokes. A masterpiece.

Full Review Source: Film Experience | comment Comment
03/13/09
Nathaniel Rogers
Film Experience

A film comedy directed with the grace of a ballet, the painstaking detail of an action painting and the affection of a love song...

Full Review Source: Turner Classic Movies Online | comment Comment
10/05/08
Sean Axmaker
Turner Classic Movies Online

Comedy has rarely been so intricate, incisive and inspired.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
12/30/06
David Parkinson
Empire Magazine

For this remarkable 1967 comedy about man and his modern world, Jacques Tati attempted nothing less than a complete reworking of the conventional notions of montage and, amazingly, he succeeded.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
12/04/06
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

My all-time favorite movie, this 1967 French comedy by actor-director Jacques Tati almost certainly has the most intricately designed mise en scene in all of cinema.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
12/04/06
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

One of cinema's truly unique visions... animated with a new kind of screen life.

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
10/04/06
Jake Euker
Filmcritic.com

This jewel of Tati's career is a hallucinatory comic vision on the verge of abstraction.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
06/24/06
Derek Adams
Time Out

Playtime is a peculiar, mysterious, magical film.

Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
01/20/06
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It's much like a silent movie, following in the giant footsteps of Chaplin and Keaton.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
11/28/05
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

No review available.

comment Comment
06/14/05
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

'It is a new way of seeing the world around us, both life affirming in its vision and brilliant in its satire'

Full Review Source: Cinematic Reflections | comment Comment
01/30/05
Derek Smith
Cinematic Reflections

[Playtime] is so richly conceived and choreographed that its lack of a plot is compensated by a wealth of memorable incidents, sight gags, gestures and satiric notions.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
01/25/05
Phil Hall
Film Threat

Tati mimics American idealism with the tour bus women’s ‘golly-gee, wow!’ attitude, and isn’t any easier on the French’s to-do, prim-and-proper persona.

Full Review Source: eCinemaCenter.com | comment Comment
01/03/05
Gabe Leibowitz
eCinemaCenter.com

With Playtime's monumental decor and complex choreographed gags taking place simultaneously in a constantly mutating space, Tati explored the possibilities of 70mm as they had never been utilized before.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
12/28/04
Elliott Stein
Village Voice
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The setting is a relative of Metropolis and Blade Runner, its fictional urban landscape brilliantly representing problems of modern life through steel and glass.

Full Review Source: Filmjourney | comment Comment
12/01/04
Doug Cummings
Filmjourney

...recreates a supposedly perfect metropolis and then watches as it comes undone by man's inherent folly.

Full Review Source: Sun Publications (Chicago, IL) | comment Comment
08/27/04
Josh Larsen
Sun Publications (Chicago, IL)

Bravo, M. Hulot! (And watch that umbrella!).

Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | comment Comment
08/26/04
Michael Wilmington
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Tati's attempt to answer this question: In the midst of an increasingly impersonal world, how do we keep our humanity?

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
07/16/04
G. Allen Johnson
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Latest News for Playtime

March 16, 2005: Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival 2005
A 70-mm French comedy by Jacques Tati will open my 7th annual Overlooked Film Festival this April, and a Bollywood musical starring "the most beautiful woman in the... More...

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