Monsieur Hulot’s Modernist Hellscape

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Ep. 43: Playtime & Criterion Love [ 1:10:59 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On today’s show, we’re touring around the dystopic Paris of the future depicted in Jacques Tati’s 1967 film, PLAYTIME. Joining host, Lady P, and Flixwise co-producer, Martin Kessler, to talk Tati are two stalwarts of the classic film blogosphere: David Blakeslee of Criterion Reflections and The Eclipse Viewer podcast, and Aaron West of Criterion Blues and the Criterion Close-Up podcast. Together, the panel marvels at the immaculately constructed city that Tati had built from scratch, and they laugh recounting how Tati’s famous Hulot character bumbles his way through this world, leaving a path of destroyed bourgeois nonsense in his wake.

PLAYTIME is one of the very few comedies in the Sight and Sound Top 50 – it’s sitting pretty (i.e. barely functional) at #43. But in typical critic fashion, Sight and Sound has awarded a comedy that also works as a pointed social satire. As audience members, we wonder why some of the laughs get stuck in our throats. Perhaps it’s because some of those laughs are at our expense.

Then, since we have two bonafide Criterion aficionados in the house, we thought we’d take this opportunity to talk about The Criterion Collection. Digital streaming services have become more and more convenient and ubiquitous in recent years. So why then do folks like David and Aaron continue not only to collect, but also write and podcast about Criterion. We discuss the enduring appeal of the Criterion brand, and whether or not physical media will continue to have a following in this increasingly cloud based realm.

Then they close things out with a few Final Notes of Positivity:

Here are David’s: This, This, and stay tuned for This

Here’s Aaron’s

Here’s Martin’s

Here’s Lady P’s