This film closes on Thursday, November 13th.

EXCLUSIVELY AT IFI

Taking over three years and costing 17 million francs to make, Jacques Tati’s Playtime was by far the director’s most ambitious and fully realised film project. Shot on a vast and stylised purpose-built set known as Tativille, the film portrays a modernist Paris dominated by high-rises all cast in glass and polished metal. Reprising his role as the tragi-comic Monsieur Hulot, a mostly solitary and silent figure, Tati appears only peripherally and yet is as close as we get to a protagonist.

The only other mainstay is a young American tourist called Barbara with whom Hulot shares a subtle and beautifully drawn connection. But attention here is much more on the balletic movement of people through space, and, particularly in the riotous and intricate restaurant scene, several incidents often occur on screen at once, making this an extraordinary cinematic experience like no other. (Notes by Alice Butler.)

Reviews:

“Masterpiece of world cinema” ★★★★★ The Irish Times

“Jacques Tati’s late masterpiece” ★★★★ The Guardian

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