PlayTime (1967)

Jacques Tati’s PlayTime was, famously, a flop. Tati built an enormous stage on the outskirts of Paris, at great cost. Audiences didn’t come and critics were divided. Over time, however, the film has come to be regarded as a masterpiece, a simultaneous statement on the confusing hollowness of modernity and a depiction of human resistance. I’ll admit that I found PlayTime difficult to watch. The concrete-and-glass visuals are weirdly beautiful, but there is no “plot” as typically understood and the dialogue is (intentionally) garbled and filled with misdirection. Only after reading Jonathan Rosenbaum’s meditations on the film—it’s his favorite—did I appreciate the subtlety of what Tati is trying to do. The linear grayness of capitalism won’t win because it can’t win. People, with our ecstatic music, our feverish sexuality, and most of all our naïveté, an enormous undefeated naïveté, will always veer from the straight line and insist on color. Cool. But I’m a just a simple ape and sometimes I need the jokes explained. 7

PlayTime, directed by Jacques Tati, performance by Jacques Tati, 1967. Reviewed June 8, 2025.