Play Time

I thought the most interesting spatial problem was the difference in scale between the overall formal gestures of the buildings and the individual occupant. What is seemingly straightforward and well organized at a larger scale is actually problematic when looked at the scale of the individual occupant. Throughout the opening scenes, there are specific shots where the director films the scene against the backdrop of the entire city. Everything in the background seems very rational and clean, somewhat detached from reality. In the foreground the streets are clogged with traffic and pedestrians are scrambling around in disorganized chaos. The same duality exists in virtually every scene. At first, the office building Hulot enters appears to be sleek, functional and highly organized. However as he gets deeper and deeper into the building we can see that the opposite is true. Each scene has a futuristic modern feel to it however when observing how the user interacts with the spaces, and the effects that the spaces have on the social interactions of the users, it is evident that this modern metropolis is plagued by the same types of problems found in a traditional urban setting.