ABSTRACT
My subject is the presence or absence of both shared public space and virtual private space in two visionary and globally minded urban epics made about thirty-seven years apart, on opposite sides of the planet-Jacques Tati’s Playtime (1967) and Jia Zhangke’s The World (Shijie, 2004), coincidentally the fourth feature made by each writer-director. Both films can be described as innovative and very modern attacks on modernity, and both have powerful metaphysical dimensions that limit their scope somewhat as narrative fictions. I should add that they both project powerful yet deceptive visions of internationalism that are predicated both literally and figuratively on trompe l’oeil, specifically on tricks with perspective and the uses of miniaturized simulacra. (I am referring here to both emblematic sites, such as the Eiffel Tower in both films, and the scaled-down skyscrapers used in the set built for Playtime.) In this sense, among others, both films are social critiques about what it means to impose monumental facades on tourists and workersvisitors and employees-who continue to think small.
