MovieChat Forums > Playtime (1973) Discussion > something I might have missed

something I might have missed

posted 22 years ago by madtus
28 replies | jump to latest

I like the movie, especially the mood it spreads. I'd like to know if there might be a little gag or something I have missed. I watched it about 5 times and each time I found something new. What about you? Which thing did you discover only after multiple viewings? What about the silent sequence with the 2 apartments where the people watch TV? I didn't quite get that. What did you enjoy most? I liked the sequence where Hulot has to wait in the waiting room and examines the chairs and everything.

[–] Sqoon 21 years ago

I recall at the scene where Barbara looks at the tourist attraction posters, it took me three times to realize that there were buildings superimposed onto the poster!

This movie can be even more fantastic if you watch it with a receptive friend. Some gags are so complex that it requires two sets of eyes to catch them, let alone follow them (best example is that is definitely that apartment rooms scene).

[–] chester-copperpot-1 16 years ago

"I recall at the scene where Barbara looks at the tourist attraction posters, it took me three times to realize that there were buildings superimposed onto the poster!"

The super-modernistic type of buildings depicted in Playtime is mostly called "The International Style". And international it is indeed, as everything looks the same! Paris looks like Athen or London or whatever. Wherever your eyes wander, there's the same non-descript office block. And the joke is that they all think it is so new and modern and beautiful and wonderful, to the point where even the travel agents use buildings like that in their advertising. So, leaving Paris to go for a vacation in Greece gets you out of your boring day to day office block to another equal boring office complex in another country. Alienation is one of Tati's main themes...

The new design of the IMDb site sucks big time. Bring back the old design, now!

[–] Sanjuro-15 16 years ago

While I'm sure a 70mm cinema viewing would be the ultimate way to watch this, it is actually really fun to watch at home with someone else who enjoys it as much as you. My wife and I had a fun time spotting all the weird goings-on (Well, until she fell asleep during the apartment/TV screen scene of course).

[–] musicbymartin 16 years ago

For me, the nightclub scenes are alive with comic richness and packed full of jokes. I particularly enjoyed noticing;

* The society lady who glides into the room, as if on wheels
* The woman who gets her heel stuck to the floor, making it look as if she is dancing to the music
* Everyone walking around with imprints of the crown-shaped chairs on their backs
* The waiter who appears drunk, rude and absorbed with his own reflection
* The guy in the serving hatch made to look like Napolean

I've been in the group for years and I know, he always listens.

[–] UnholyBlackMetal 21 years ago

I think the tv watching sequence between the two apartments is primarily a commentary on the absurdity of the two groups of people staring fixated at the same spot on a wall.

[–] mrflagio 20 years ago

saw the film last night for the first time...I believe the joke is that it appears that they are watching each other, not the TV or wall. When the one character starts undressing, the people in the other apartment send their daughter away. Watch closely, the responses of the one apt clearly respond to the activity in the other.

[–] Beardos_Film_Watcher 17 years ago

I remember creasing myself during the TV watching scene.

Having only seen Playtime once, I'm sure to have missed an awful lot of stuff, but at the end with the traffic jam, I remember laughing at the bouncing suspension of the Citroen 2CV, probably one of the less complex gags, but just seeing it move along a little at a time, rocking back-and-forth! :D

And I loved the comments from the American tourists about the vacuum cleaner (or brush, I can't remember which) with the lights on it for cleaning under chairs.

"Yes...very useful." and "Wow!" in completely serious voices. Brilliant!

I definitely need to see this film again.

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[–] wmorrow59 20 years ago

I've seen Playtime three times over the years, most recently last week, and there's something I finally figured out on the third viewing: during the early scenes, in that spotless steel-and-glass office building, there's a janitor with a broom who occasionally appears, looks around miserably, then shuffles away. I kept waiting for a pay-off, but there isn't one. It finally dawned on me: the building is so antiseptic and clean, the janitor has nothing to do!

[–] Sqoon 20 years ago

I saw that one on the second viewing. On the third viewing, I noticed that the janitor eventually returns and joins in on the dance floor festivites. What a nice guy.

[–] bzelkowicz 20 years ago

i love the carousel scene at the end (the traffic circle). it took a couple of times before i noticed the guy dropping a coin in the meter, which leads to theen the music starting up.

[–] film-29 20 years ago

There is an halo over a priest's head at the drugstore, another one that might be missed: the American fellow who wants to invite everybody lowers a kind guillotine-like window used to pass the dishes, and this (the window) seems Napoleon's hat on the head of a cook. Another one, when the carousel like caravan of cars goes round and round two groups of people wait for a cab; one family carries a bag and one carries a baby, both, bag and baby's clothes are the same colour; obviously the family owning the bag takes the baby and the family with the baby climbs the cab carrying the bag. Obviously too, they swap the "items"

I wanted to be the first kid on my block to get a confirmed kill.

[–] film-29 20 years ago

At the airport. The second time the iddling janitor is seen, well there is an old and little man chased by a jounalist and a couple of photographers if you look at his attaché case it has a tag that spins very rapidly like a helix.

I wanted to be the first kid on my block to get a confirmed kill.

[–] CGA_Soupdragon 17 years ago

The film starts off in what seems to be a hospital.

The woman's "leg" being lifted up after she falls to the floor by the table.

The many "Hulot" sightings!

Team Europe

[–] lanwarder 15 years ago

I too thought the opening seen was a hospital. I finally realized it wasn't when the "nurse" whom I thought was carrying a baby, was actually a bundle of towels. I really enjoyed how the opening scene morphed into a larger one over time.

[–] FrankDonlan 17 years ago

the disintegrating waiter is a good one, also i love the visions of paris only reflected in glass. The tiny old security guard and the incomprehensible intercom, fake hulots aplenty, almost like where's waldo at times. *beep* genius on a wholly different level. There will never be another like Tati.

[–] lubin-freddy 17 years ago

I most enjoyed:

1. Travel posters of the other "Tativilles", and the Eiffel Tower reflected in the glass.

2. The flower lady and the tourists.

[–] gayspiritwarrior 16 years ago

One of the more obvious, maybe, but who else in the world would ever have thought of it: the bus in the window that's being washed. Might be the most visually inventive movie since Keaton.

"The value of an idea has nothing to do with the honesty of the man expressing it."--Oscar Wilde

[–] Kip-13 16 years ago

Hulot and the other two gentlemen eating in the pharmacy: I love how the food moves in unsettling ways, and is made more unappealing by the green neon pharmacy sign, and the subtle ways the three men interact as they try to maintain personal space.

[–] rgibson103 16 years ago

Doesn't the band at the nightclub play the theme from Brazil before the trumpeter shows up? Or did I just imagine that?

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[–] redkanary 16 years ago

There are so many things going on, especially in the restaurant scene, I don't think anyone catches everything the first time through. One little thing I loved was the waiter pouring drinks looking like he was watering the flowers on the womens' hats.

[–] freudified_n_funkified 16 years ago

LOTS of flower stuff going on in the movie. Took me a couple times to put together the total of the significance, but I'm slow on the uptake.

[–] twelvepointnine 15 years ago

There's a scene where a new group of tired (American?) tourists arrive at the hotel and the first group leaves for a night on the town. The ladies from the new group all have withering flowers on the hats, the partygoers' flowers look fresh and colourful.

Lovely details, I'm already looking forward to a second viewing.

Chaos reigns

[–] jerryluogaz 14 years ago

I thought the new group was from Australia(from accent):)

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