The result of a three-year shooting schedule and one of France's costliest films to produce, Playtime is likely the greatest film in the collection of its director, Jacques Tati. The movie has no story. None. It technically has a variety of moments which could be placed together to form several interconnected stories but in the end this is actually a series of elaborate set pieces with a cast of thousands interacting with each other as if this were a real city. We get a fly-on-the-wall view of places like a Paris airport and events like the setting up of a restaurant. And, surprisingly, there's a great deal of comedy here, although much of it - like everything else - is hidden in an abundance of details. You could literally watch this movie a dozen times and get a completely different viewing experience each time. There are so many people to follow, so many minor happenings to enjoy, so many peculiar twists to catch. And if you just give in to it and watch it as an almost subconscious process then it has the ability to truly bring you to a futuristic (for the 1970s) city and let you dig in and wander around without troubling you to follow along the set path of a narrative. In some sense, this is the closest that cinema has ever come to capturing what comes so naturally to video games. And Tati's Paris is certainly as intricate and fascinating as Rapture or the Capital Wasteland.
Eric Day co-hosts the Murderville Podcast at www.welcometomurderville.com
Give it a listen. Five minutes. Maybe you'll dig it. Maybe you'll hate it. But at least you'll have tried something new.
