Jacques Tati

Playtime places Monsieur Hulot inside glass offices, public spaces and an increasingly chaotic restaurant. Tati’s restrained presence gives viewers room to discover jokes within the wider frame, rather than directing every laugh towards a close-up. Watch it for the relationship between an uncertain movement, a sound and the surrounding architecture. This is deadpan comedy organised across an entire image: Hulot can be quietly bewildered while the environment performs much of the comic work around him.