In the organizer's words:

The lovably eccentric film character Monsieur Hulot finds himself completely bewildered by the intimidating complexity of gadget-filled, futuristic Paris full of glass, steel and sterile modernism. Searching in vain to meet a business contact, he soon loses his way and instead encounters a cascade of bizarre misadventures that unfold across stunning sets as a labyrinth of modern architecture.

The film eschews a classical plot in favor of a choreographed, visual comedy web in which the architectural coldness is broken up by human disorder and charming mishaps. Jacques Tati stages his temporary film set, also known as "Tativille", as a modern world that resembles itself to the point of interchangeability. In an absurd manner, the film criticizes modernism: be it through the impersonality, conformity and sterility of modernity or through the monotony of the rooms, which directs concentration to unavoidable noises. PlayTime is a satirical, visual symphony of modernism - imaginative, ironic and formally radical - and is now regarded as Tati's masterpiece.