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Or maybe it's a critique of the dehumanizing effects of colossal le Corbusier style architecture.
This is certainly one of Tati's main points. Playtime is entirely given over to the ways in which our technology seperates us from ourselves - something he was already on about in Mon Oncle. The city and the primary (new) architecture of Tativille break down social and cultural groups, to the point where the tourists only see classic elements of Paris is reflections, or at the flower stand constantly being encroached upon by the looming skyscrapers. The only time people connect and get to have any sort of warmth or fun is in the collapsing rear of the ultra-modern restaraunt that acts as setpiece for the second half of the film.
The noble virus thesis seems to work with this, though something doesn't feel right about it, which may be entirely attributable to my state of fatigue. The quite difficult root question is why do we construct these habitrails that go quite against our nature, when at a molecular level we're just going to sabotage them sooner or later. Or perhaps that's not the point at all. Very tired, me. Are you working solely from the point of view of this film, or are other Hulot pictures fair game?
On a fanboy level, I love the restaraunt sequences, where a comically stylized romp of decaying decadence becomes something like a timeshifted bordello out of The Zone in Gravity's Rainbow - with Tati's somewhat more genteel sensibilities, of course.
It's a shame the picture didn't do well at all, and pretty much broke poor Tati. Once you get past a somewhat intimidating first ten minutes, Playtime really becomes an unsurpassed piece of physical comedy, layered and choreographed with an absolutely amazing eye for detail. I wish I could remeber how many actors are said to have played Hulot in the film - I've heard anywhere from two (Tati and a stand-in for long shots) to eight or nine. No matter. It's brilliant, I love it, and if I weren't so tired I'd just keep typing. |
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