city

Lucinda 2022-03-23 09:02:49

Comedy misery. The characters in the film are full of stupidity, and under the shell of comedy, people feel that the world is over. I like the color tone very much, gray tone: minimalist, cold and rigid mechanization, yellow: carnival, corrupt luxury urban beauty. Color shifts lead the film’s mood changes and narrative development; work during the day and play at night comes to dawn, and gray-yellow-gray forms a closed loop of urban rotation.

Falling from the roof of the restaurant and unshackled

The symbol of the broken glass door The symbol of the gears of the city roundabout

The man who used the lamp pole as a handrail on the bus - French humor

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[Restaurant part]: The carnival people don't care about the destruction of clothing and body, only with the scars of consumerism can they enter the real dilapidated corner hidden under the luxury. Classes melted in the restaurant, meeting the barren group portraits of Chengdu. The modern glass door reflects the beauty of ancient Paris, and the hustle and bustle shatters the glass. So far, the classic is broken. The glitz of the past is like a flash in the sky, buried under the ruins of the modern city's mechanical smoke and dust, hip-hop dance steps accompanied by cock crowing, replacing the old chanting wind chimes. The crowd is about to join the mice on the street corner, enter the convenience store, stand on the mechanized gears, and start a new day.

There is revelry everywhere, nothingness is everywhere, frivolous emotions are everywhere, rotting in the air. Joy, with the deepest sarcasm, goes round and round, day and night. --City

Playtime (1967)
8.8
1967 / France Italy / Comedy / Jacques Tati / Jacques Tati Barbara Dennek

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Extended Reading
  • Ayla 2022-03-28 09:01:08

    Still not happy, even though it's a comedy. The ending part treats the city's turntable as a merry-go-round, and the glass tilts to match the people in the car, like a pirate ship. It seems that the director is still very fond of the living atmosphere of the Americans, and by the way criticizes the French themselves. The first half was in the cold office, and the two of them were so close to each other that they could never see each other. The chaos and disorder in the restaurant part reminded me of the live broadcast of the Olympic Games in Pangu Daguan,

  • Tamara 2022-03-20 09:02:24

    Pruss wrote that the brightly lit restaurant at night is like a big fish tank. This kind of looking through the window was used to the extreme by Tati. The whole movie can be said to be a glass variation, "Silent Door", which is both It can be Hope style (visiting friends and neighbors at night), or Fellini style (restaurant group play scheduling), of course it is always comedy. The standard picture of modern life has become a stage for misunderstandings. The waiter pouring wine over his head is like watering flowers, the priest’s head is a flashing O-shaped halo, and the drunkard has no map to find his way to the pattern on the wall. This dislocation is deeply rooted in the structure of capitalism, just as the grid implies, The technology of mechanical production makes life a device. If the lens is also regarded as glass, then the deep focus panorama and sound reverberation will mark our position. The dialogue is caught in the chaos of language, but the noise is always loud. What better way to show the absurdity of being overwhelmed by noise ? In a gradual and cheerful rhythm, the film proves itself. From the artistic art of helioness to the emotional fusion of Bacchus, the world has changed from a button to a playground. Bravo, this modern era!

Playtime quotes

  • Barbara, Young Tourist: How do you say "drugstore" in French?

    Monsieur Hulot: Drugstore.

  • Monsieur Hulot: [in English, to Barbara] I'll be back.

    Old Woman 1: [in French] What's that mean?

    Old Woman 2: [in French] I've no idea. Can't they use French?