Tati is hard for American sensibilities. For example, the French love some very strange things about America; they turned hack Jerry Lewis into an auteur, who then decided that he actually was one. It's not that they are right, or wrong; it's that they recognize and read a subtext that may be different from (in the case of detective fiction being transformed into
film noir), or even unintended by (in the case of Jerry Lewis), the original film makers.
So in
Playtime Tati explicitly includes a subtext that Americans are unfamiliar with. In America, things don't fall apart as they do in
Playtime, with the people blithely carrying on as if everything were fine. In America, if things start falling apart we stop and pitch in and fix it, then carry on. We can't relate. The semiotics make no sense to us, the tropes and devices fall flat because the actions and stylings frustrate us without providing any comic relief; we can never relate, we can't say "Oh yes, I've been in that situation too!"
I find Tati funny but from a distance. I respect his work, but I only understand it second hand, like you might only know a joke is funny after someone explains it to you; you then "got it" but you missed the "laugh out loud" part that should have happened when it was first told.
<message edited by Mosca on Mon, 08/24/09 12:05 PM>
