Play Time DVD - Classic Italian Comedy Film by Jacques Tati | Perfect for Movie Nights & Film Enthusiasts

For those familiar with the film, the Blu-ray edition is a spectacular improvement over the SD DVD. Seen on a 120 inch screen via a 1080p projector, suddenly the film works as intended. While it goes without saying that a James Bond film is more exciting at high volume on the big screen, it still works as entertainment at home on a modest TV. Playtime, however, only really functions when it's cinematic. Criterion's wonderful decision to release this on Blu-ray makes this a possibility. The film needs size, and size demands HD detail, especially when a joke might be occupying a tiny fraction of the total screen. Some of Criterion's Blu-ray reissues, while terrific films, don't benefit greatly from HD (The Third Man, and even Wages of Fear, come to mind) - but Playtime becomes a different experience. The image quality is excellent - on a par with any colour HD restoration of a film of the period that I've seen (e.g. The Wild Bunch, A Clockwork Orange) - of course, the film elements are 40 years old and Mr.Hulot is not as athletic as Daniel Craig, his love interest tends to wear an overcoat, and (spoiler alert!) there are no explosions. There are no car chases, but there is a traffic jam. So, yes, visually you'll be immersed, but your socks won't be blown into the next room.Tati's creation does not function as a traditional narrative. Often enough different sectors of the framed image compete for the viewer's attention - there is a unique freedom available to the viewer: you can literally choose what you would like to focus upon. In this the film truly approaches the experience of a being an observer in ordinary life. And, a bit like ordinary life, you have do some of the work if you're hoping to find what you're viewing interesting. Perhaps at times you might find yourself bored - but there's room enough in the film to sustain some boredom. You can drift off into your own thoughts and return to the film as you will.Of course the film is filled with surprising observations from Tati himself, and inimicable visual and auditory humour. There's little in the way of dialogue, but the voice of an electronic button, or the background hum in a room, or the noise of the street as the camera voyeuristically peers through a window, makes Playtime anything but a silent movie. Again, Tati offers us the opportunity to not only see the ordinary afresh, but to also hear it anew.Like a great painting, or a great novel, or a great play, Playtime invites you to see the world from a new and different vantage. For all its intellectual and aesthetic verve, Playtime does operate in a limited emotional range. Like its predominantly grey colour palette, the film's emotions are muffled - Mr.Hulot is a little baffled, a little bewildered, yet he remains intrigued and charmed by the world - his distance from the world allows in his comedy - but it's not a comedy that channels any of the grand passions. Frustration, alienation, emptiness, a critique of modernity's soullessness, all this can be contemplated during the film, accompanied by a smile. Love and hate must wait for another day, another film. So while I agree with the many opinions that have Playtime as Tati's masterpiece, and an utterly unique film, I'm also glad there are many other kinds of masterpiece in the history of cinema.