Jacques Tati’s “Playtime,” depicts modernism’s problematic impact on the city and the way in which people interact within it.
In Playtime, Tati’s character, M. Hulot, and a group of American tourists attempt to navigate a futuristic Paris constructed of straight lines, modernist glass and steel high-rise buildings, multi-lane roadways, and cold, artificial furnishings.
At the time of it’s making, “Playtime” (1967) was the most expensive film in French history. Tati filmed it in “Tativille,” an enormous set outside Paris that reproduced an airline terminal, city streets, high rise buildings, offices and a traffic circle.
The screening was open to the public.
Talk back followed film by Arch11