Mon Oncle
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| Mon Oncle | |
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 Mon Oncle poster |
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| Directed by | Jacques Tati |
| Produced by | Jacques Tati |
| Written by | Jacques Lagrange Jean L'Hôte Jacques Tati |
| Starring | Jacques Tati Jean-Pierre Zola Adrienne Servantie Alain Bécourt |
| Distributed by | Gaumont |
| Release date(s) |  May 10, 1958 November 3, 1958 |
| Running time | 110 min. |
| Language | French |
| Budget | FRF 250,000 (est.) |
| Preceded by | Mr. Hulot's Holiday |
| Followed by | Playtime |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Mon Oncle ("My Uncle") is a 1958 film by French filmmaker Jacques Tati. It was Tati's first colour film — not counting the colour-debacle of Jour de fête — and that same year won him the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a Special Prize at Cannes, as well as the prestigious New York Film Critics Award, making it the most-awarded of Tati's films.
The film centers on the character of Monsieur Hulot (who had already appeared in Tati's previous comedy, Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot), and his quixotic struggle with postwar France's infatuation with modern architecture, mechanical efficiency and American-style consumerism. As with most Tati films, Mon Oncle is largely a visual comedy (Tati began his career as a mime). Dialogue is of minor importance, and most conversations in the film are intentionally barely audible, merging with background noises. Most of these conversations are not subtitled. The complex soundtrack uses music to characterize environments, including a lively musical theme that represents Hulot's world of jolly inefficiency and freedom.
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[edit] Synopsis
M. Hulot is the dreamy, impractical and adored uncle of young Gérard (nine years old), who lives with his materialistic parents in an ultra-modern, geometric house with a geometric garden in a new suburb of Paris, situated just beyond the crumbling stone buildings of the older city. Gérard's parents, M. and Mme. Arpel, are firmly entrenched in a machine-like, middle-class regime of 9 to 5 work, fixed gender roles, and the acquisition of status through possessions and conspicuous display. (A running gag involves a fish-shaped fountain at the center of the Arpels' garden that Mme. Arpel turns on only for important visitors.) Despite its modernistic beauty (the set was so admired by one film fan that a real-life version of the house was constructed near Paris),[citation needed], the Arpels' home is entirely impersonal. In fact, M. and Mme. Arpel have subordinated their individuality to maintain their social position and their shiny new possessions.
In contrast, Uncle Hulot lives in a small old corner of the city where everyone knows each other, and people prefer conversation or a drink at the bistro to working. He is unemployed, and gets around town on a shabby bicycle or a horse-drawn cart. Naturally, young Gérard, who is utterly bored by the sterility and monotony of his home life, fastens himself to Uncle Hulot at every opportunity. In one episode, while escorting Gérard home from his factory-like school, Uncle Hulot allows the boy the delicious and unaccustomed freedom to join his friends in childhood mischief and between-meal snacking in a trash-strewn empty lot.
The film escalates the contrast in lifestyles when Hulot's sister persuades her husband to employ Hulot at his factory, Plastac. Utterly unfit for an industrial environment, Hulot falls asleep on the job, with predictably zany consequences. Still, by the end of the film, Hulot's influence on Gérard has allowed the boy to connect with his father for the first time.
Mon Oncle is a critique of efficiency, mechanization and materialism, contrasted with the inefficient but human-centered world of Monsieur Hulot. Throughout the film, Hulot's values are thematically represented by the pack of four small dogs. In the post-credits opening shot, they are seen frolicking in the stone streets of Hulot's neighborhood, along with a dachshund in a red coat. We later learn the dachshund lives with the Arpels and has escaped for the day. The dogs reappear throughout the film, sometimes bounding over a broken wall that represents the boundary between the old and the new Paris. The dogs even sneak into the factory, courtesy of Hulot's inattentiveness, but are immediately shooed out by a guard. At the film's end, they are still joyfully running about Hulot's neighborhood to the accompaniment of the lively musical theme, as a voile curtain flutters across the image.
[edit] English version
An English version, released as My Uncle, was filmed at the same time as the French-language film. In the English-language release, French signs are replaced by English ones, and important dialogue is dubbed in English while background voices remain in French.
[edit] Cast
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[edit] External links
- Mon oncle at the Internet Movie Database
- Criterion Collection essay by Matt Zoller Seitz
- Mon Oncle at Tativille the unofficial Jacques Tati site
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| Preceded by Nights of Cabiria |
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 1958 |
Succeeded by Black Orpheus |
| Preceded by Kanał tied with The Seventh Seal |
Special Jury Prize, Cannes 1958 |
Succeeded by Stars |
