Playing around mid-century modern style part 1: Play Time (France 1967)

I recently watched two films that used mid-century modern architecture and style as a setting for comic purposes. They both were highly successful and a wonderful time machines for enthusiasts of the era. The first was Jacques Tati's 1967 Play Time. An enormously ambitious (and expensive) project, it plants Tati's Monsieur Hulot in a stark glass and stainless steel wonderland of ultra-modern confusion. The comedy is subtle and clever, with an ambling pace that balances a sense of amusement with a sort of awe at the modern world. Absurd scenarios play out in the form of interweaving characters who walk in and out of the story in a natural pace, with overlapping dialogue. The Hulot character is actually marginalized, which might disappoint fans of the earlier Tati comedies. The perspectives and scenarios play with scale and are without equal, all photographed in stunning 70mm. This Criterion Collection release has a remarkable second disc that illustrates how Tati went about building this city setting expressly for the film. It was so expensive that it lost money.