Never Gonna Fall For...Modern Life...Never Gonna Fall For
Only the French could do it like this...

Thanks to a film I viewed a few weeks ago, I was trying to think of another movie that made me laugh out loud, and at the same time, frankly, depressed the hell out of me...

Actually, I should be more specific. The 90's version of Cyrano de Bergerac with Depardieu makes me laugh and by the end makes me really sad, but that's not really what I'm thinking. Come to think of it, most modern romantic comedies depress me...but usually don't make me laugh. Anyhow, that's a whole other issue...

I'm talking modern life...or just life in general...or the human condition...that kind of high-falutin' silliness.

The first movie that sprung to mind was Mike Judge's Idiocracy, which barely saw release last year. It's depiction of a future overrun by the proliferation of the lowest common denominator was both laugh out loud funny and very obviously meant to shame you for laughing at its stupidity at the same time. It was something Judge had certainly been perfecting with Beavis & Butthead. The sad irony being that over time people stopped looking down at their moronic antics, and began to identify with them. (The "bliss of ignrance" so to speak...)

Someone just tossed in Terry Gilliam's Brazil, which is another fine example. It's a d@mned good combination of Orwell and Huxley's visions of the future. It doesn't try to deliver on the laughs in a typically comedic fashion, but it certainly has some classic funny moments. Hell, Robert DeNiro as a revolutionary air-conditioning repair man (I know, I know...Heating Engineer) is pure hilarity in and of itself. And yet, it has one of the most horrific moments ever when the same character is killed...by paperwork...in a scene that simply has to be seen.

So why was I thinking about this? Because I sat down and watched:

Playtime (1967)
written and directed by: Jacques Tati

The Story: On his way to appointment, M. Hulot ends up spending a day trapped in the new modern section of Paris where he constantly crosses paths with a pretty American tourist who can't find her way free to the classic parts of the town.

The Review: Playtime is another one of those massive undertaking's that became a cinematic pariah in it's time when it was considered a disappointing failure after much anticipation during it's 3 years of production and massive construction of several city blocks for the set. Now, of course, it's come to be considered a masterpiece, not only of Tati's well regarded work, but of cinema in general. I felt it well deserved that distinction while watching it.

But it wasn't exactly easy...

The words "oppressive" and "alienating" don't fit in to the description of many comedies, but Playtime could easily be described as both. The meticulously constructed sets of steel and glass with little but black and grey tones for a color palette were at once amazing, and utterly frigid. The angles and planes of..well, everything...reminded me of the futurist drawings of Antonio Sant'Elia but drained of any of the character or humanity. So, they were at once fascinating to look at it, and horrific to imagine occupying.

Not that it's easy to imagine that as the whole film was lensed at a distance not wholly unlike watching the whole film through a security camera. That's not to say it was a bad thing. There are so many rich details to watch in the edges and corners of any given frame. Hulot and the tourist girl aren't the only figures who seem to be wandering in circles through this glacial modernity. If you look around, you'll see the same distinct little figures move through the frame, and by the end, they're almost like the people you see each day around your neighborhood that you don't know and likely will never speak to.

And yet, there's still something very funny about watching Hulot get whisked through it all. One particular standout moment is a scene on a shopping center's showroom where people are wowed by an array of useless but interesting modern gadgets. It's sort of a preview of The Sharper Image 10 years before said company first opened it's doors.

By the last third of the film, it warms considerably as Hulot is snagged into a new modern restaurant that's barely finished construction before it opens it's door to the public. There are a number of wonderful comic moments such as couple who never gets served their dish which sits on a tray in front of them with waiters constantly coming to prepare it only to be called away. The restaurant's construction is shoddy, and as the evening really gets under way, the public all but tears it apart piece by piece. In the midst of the chaos, however, is where most of the human connections take place (mostly lorded over by a archetypically "Ugly American" tourist).

Believe me, I've only mentioned a few highlights, there are plenty more wonderful jokes and sight gags (the best one involves the door of the restaurant...but I'll say no more). Not to mention that I could write an entire analysis of the design "flaws" the movie pokes fun at as "form" rules over "substance" much to the chagrin of the people dealing with it.

By the end, I was exhausted. Mostly because of the conflicting emotions watching the movie, but also because it seemed so much more relevant to our lives now than perhaps it did then. Or perhaps it was a truth that they weren't ready to face about the potential for alienation in modern life. However Playtime presents that alienation in the modern structural forms from office buildings to office cubicles, all the elevators and escalators in between, and out to the endless cycle of traffic outside. In reading the wikipedia entry for Tati, it seems that his last project was meant to be another comedic take on the sort of alienation that's even more pervasive today: "'Confusion' was a story about a futuristic city (Paris) where activity is centered around television, communication, advertising, and modern society's infatuation with visual imagery." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaques_Tati)

I'm sure if computers were as much a part of daily personal life in Tati's time (he died in 1982), he'd have had something to say about them as well. In some ways that brings to mind another movie...David Cronenberg's Videodrome (which...well, isn't a comedy). Although it was about television, it really had so much more to say about the future of computers, and the anonymity and potential alienation contained therein.

In any event, I recommend you get a copy of Playtime, give it a whirl, and maybe give it some thought.

Cheers.