Mon Oncle Blu-ray Review

• 1st Nov 2012

Alongside the recent BFI release of Jacques Tati’s first film Jour de Fete (1949) comes the equally classic Mon Oncle, one of his most accomplished and, dare I say it one of the most clichéd of French comedies. Tati completed five feature films and one TV movie in his career from 1949 until retired in 1974 (he died in 1982). In Mon Oncle Tati revives themes from Jour de Fete about modernity living alongside tradition with modernity signalling change and thereby creating some ridiculous situations. The French comic also revives the character of Monsieur Hulot made so popular by Tati in his previous film, the international hit Les Vacances de M. Hulot (1953).

In Mon Oncle the themes the artiste had explored in his first film about a postman adapting to modernity in a small bucolic provincial village are explored to its full potential in the later film as Monsieur Hulot living in a vieux quartier of Paris spends time visiting his sister and her industrialist husband (he runs a plastics factory) in their all mod cons modernist house and befriends their son whom Hulot gets along with and spends time. There are signs that the 10-year-old boy is rebelling against his parents and their bourgeois pretensions and is more attracted to the mischievous street urchins who live in Hulot’s neighborhood. Although there is more dialogue in this film than in most Tati films the influences of the likes of Chaplin, Buster Keaton and silent comedy in general are clear influences on his brand of comedy. Like these aforementioned comics Tati’s Hulot is also an iconic figure with his extended pipe, raincoat and short drainpipe trousers; his movements and gestures are also very mannered. One is also reminded of Woody Allen’s Sleeper (1973) which is set in a future society in which Allen was clearly influenced by Tati in the way he filmed and laughed at modernism all played out to a trad jazz score. The use of jazz is effective and particularly well used in the film. Yet the funniest aspects of the film are surprisingly the children and animals (despite the maxim that filmmakers should never work with children or animals) as well as a very funny fountain. The childish pranks of the kids are laugh out hilarious as are the stray dogs drifting between the streets of the old Paris to the new modernist suburbs, like their human counterparts. Some of the film was shot around the new town suburb of Creteil as well as vieux Paris that was being demolished to make way for the new, while the modernist house was built in a studio near Nice (although as the sleeve notes state that a fan of the film built a perfect copy of the house in a Paris suburbia). Tati went on to repeat these themes of the craziness of modernity in his more ambitious next film, Parade (1967) and again using similar themes about travel and cars in Traffic (1971).

The transfer of the film is superb and does justice to the bright colours, all very French 1950s in style. In fact the super modernist house, gadgets and decor would have already alredy looked dated by 1958. The house and its contents would have looked totally new in the 1920s with the architecture of Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus school, sculptures by the likes of Picasso etc. But it took a long time for this modernity to be accepted by the world at large and therefore by the 1950s it would have become more mainstream for an educated bourgeoisie, yet the couple do appear to be rather pretentious in the way they demonstrate their wealth and taste. There are few extras on the disc other than the English language version of the film largely known by English speaking audiences. Tati anglicized and shot various parts of the film to make his film more appealing to an international/English speaking audience. The accompanying essay on the disc sleeve goes into less detail about the film than had been the case in previous releases. Never the less, nicely packaged this is the best of the filmmakers films that is worthy of being viewed by a new audience.

Chris Hick