PlayTime1967

The production of this movie makes for some impeccable shots creating a universe of its own. A movie that feels like a slice of life, a live stream of a corporate city directed by and starring the incredible Jacques Tati, the movie has little to no dialogue and a narrative almost nonexistent. Everything is told through the lens and brilliant compositions, a contemplative experience, one where you give the movie its meaning. Quite experimental if you were to ask me. I would say it really brushes the edge of boredom, after an hour or so when we enter the restaurant sequence for the first time ever I had to pull my phone to pass a movie by. We begin in a grey brutalist world, a corporate labyrinth where our “main” character played by Jacques Tati is presumably seeking a someone for a job, for an entire hour we watch them chasing one another in this liminal space that feels almost dystopian where everything is in an aberrant order, and everyone is in their box doing their designated task. The movie leans in the absurdity of this words and its never ending procedures, especially in a scene where we see the recruiter is tasked to reveal the balance of a client in one of the boxes, so he leaves his box, walks to the one where the client is, retrieves a paper, goes back to his box, calls the client again, and delivers the absurd amount of $4 million. I mean if you can’t see a problem here it's probably too late for you to be rescued… They keep on this back and forth between them while the movie keeps adding elements to it or rather loops back to earlier established elements, like the English tourists that came to visit Paris, and somehow their first stop is a corporate building?? and they are immediately dropped into a trade fair? capitalism yay, although one of the tourists does seek wonder, unlike the others who got sucked into the spending schemes of finance Bros, this female tourist goes around the lifeless streets of Paris looking for something, anything that would spark wonder, despite the city being packed, there is not much living happening; everyone in a hurry in their own race against time, their chase for bread, leur gagne pain as the French like to say, the only thing that catches the tourist's eyes is an old lady that sells flowers, la fleuriste, she tries to capture her with her camera, to preserve that glimpse of colors, but with vain results as she kept being interrupted by those chased-souls, the tourist seeks to see the magic of Paris to catch its beauty through its iconic landmarks but unfortunately she's thrown into a different world, and in a scene she catches a glimpse of that dream, a reflection of the paragon of light, La Tour Eiffel reflected on the bland glass door of the building, and instead of turning behind her where the light is, to see the real thing, she instead settles to capture a mere reflection and even then she still fails to do so, or rather the environment around her refuses to let her capture that spark. What follows are more chasing sequences, more tourists that come in and little by little a chaos emerges, a slow build towards it and then... the Restaurant a place where all the order is thrown outside of the movie. It starts by the restaurant itself a symbol of structure and oragnisation, breaking apart as it desperatley tries to mainatin itself together for the eyes of the guests. it only took a jazz band to tear the whole thing down, as soon as music fills the space, Humanity and chaos are unleashed as these two forces could not be more intertwined, it is at this moment we see those lifeless figures turn into humans, when art reaches the soul it breathes life into it, it makes them jump, dance, live, laugh and love (😨🫢🫢😱) now I understand the importance of parties in one piece… the next morning, once outside the restaurant, the world has drastically changed. what was once grey is now red, what was once black middle-aged figures are now families and kids filling the streets all while a circus theme song plays, it is as if the city found back its spark, bright colors flood the frame and everyone doing their own thing. Mais quel cirque!! But then again, is the Circus a compliment or a mockery?…