Playtime

IMDb RATING

7.8/10

27K

YOUR RATING

Play trailer1:32

1 Video

99+ Photos

Slapstick Comedy

Monsieur Hulot 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 ... Read allMonsieur Hulot 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.Monsieur Hulot 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.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.8/10

27K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 2 wins & 1 nomination total

Videos1

Trailer 1:32

Trailer

Photos106

+ 99

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
The elaborate set of Tativille had its own roads, electrical systems and - in one of the office buildings - a fully working elevator.

Goofs
The escalator handrails aren't moving in the airport scene. The actors skim their hands along pretending it's moving, when you can see by reflections of its surface that it is indeed not.

Quotes
Barbara, Young Tourist: How do you say "drugstore" in French?
Monsieur Hulot: Drugstore.

Crazy credits
The title isn't shown until the end of the opening credits. Additionally, there are no end credits. The final shot simply fades out and there is about a minute of exit music.

Alternate versions
The first cut of the film ran 155 minutes with intermission and exit music. This version, which ran for six months, was edited down by Tati himself to 135 minutes based on audience reactions. It was released on 70 mm with 6-Track sound. In the US the film was released with a running time of 93 min. and 1-Track mono sound. Other versions ran between 108-120 min. and were released on 35 mm with 4-Track Stereo sound (quadraphonic). When the film was re-released in France of 1978, cinemas refused to screen the film if it was over two hours long so Tati edited it down to 119 minutes. In 2002 the film was restored a length of 124 minutes based on two surviving copies of the 135 minute cut. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002 and is the version that is widely available since.

Connections
Edited into Damned! Daney (1991)

Soundtracks
L'Opéra des Jours Heureux
Music by Francis Lemarque
Lyrics by Francis Lemarque
Performed by Francis Lemarque

User reviews106

Review

Featured review

10/10

It's Tati's World. We're just living in it.

I comment 2 years after seeing "Playtime" at the Art Institute of Chicago, an event in which the film was presented in its original 70mm format for the first time since its debut. Over the years it had been cropped and recropped for standard prints and video leaving little of the original magic, which is the sheer SCOPE of this visual marvel.

Absolutely amazing sells "Play" short. The picture was so clear and the sequences so thrilling that I dare say this is Tati's Masterpiece. Apparently, he created an entire 1/5th scale city outside Paris and shot over the course of three years to get this honey in the can, and man-o-man, does it show.

This is the kind of film that reminds a viewer just how standardized modern cinematic narrative has become. Tati exists in an alternate plane of recorded consciousness; I walked out of "Play" as if hallucinating, having fully entered his perspective and adopted his suggestions as my own.

This is a film in balance with the nature of cinema itself; if Frank Lloyd Wright was a director, Tati would be his disciple: Tati's cinematic interpretations are in natural proportion to the distinctive elements of film. Visual dominance, sound hyperbarically in support of the image rhythm, help me I'm hallucinating again-thanks Jaques...

Don't miss this one, but don't see it in any other format than a special 70mm screening. Somebody put a screening together!!!