Mon oncle (1958)
Jacques Tati’s Mon oncle (the second in the Monsieur Hulot series) is one of those pictures that reaffirms how underutilized the comedy picture generally is, especially nowadays. The comedy (along with the horror film) seems to be seen as a genre to cut your teeth on before moving on to more “important” pictures, tossed off to the little guys when there should be room reserved for our masters. We should know by now that the comedy and the horror picture are two of the hardest genres to realize, as well as two of the richest and most malleable: the two genres most willing to lend themselves to subtexts that can be heavy, or maudlin or self-congratulatory in other genres.
Mon oncle is a tonal wonder, a film that appears to be light, airy and inconsequential, but slowly works its hooks into you without your knowing. The films all too often these days announce their effect from the outset, a program might as well appear in the lobby announcing the evening’s intentions; “tonight, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Haggis wishes to present to you a story of racial strife and hope” or “tonight, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Gondry wishes to present to you a story of incoherent whimsy and self-consciousness.” If you haven’t read or seen much of Tati’s Hulot series (I’m a novice myself), you can be forgiven for assuming you have Mon oncle figured out, particularly after the stylish/cute opening scene that follows a group of dogs from the cramped, cluttered, more rambunctiously alive city to the stylized, stiflingly chic home of the family of a higher-up in the plastics industry. One dog gets beyond the gates while the others don’t; a blunt but more succinct summation of the classes than Haggis has yet to offer.
The family is comprised of a puffy, proud wife, the puffier, prouder plastics executive, and a boy who appears to be over it all (he longs, as many people in these types of pictures have a habit of longing, for something more tangible and real, a bit of mischief to jar all that overwhelming pride in purposeless accomplishment). Left to their own devices, this family would be assured a place of tranquil suburban convenience that fosters a certain kind of new age modern lobotomy, chic ritual at the expense of anything messy or imaginative. But that is not to be, Monsieur Hulot, the uncle of the title (whom the director plays himself) occasionally drops by to shake the family out of their domestic stupor. Hulot is a stranded misfit, clad in coat and pipe, (suggesting Sherlock Holmes by way of Peter Sellers, though purposefully lacking the personality of either) that lives a life, like the Tramp, or even Boudu, totally devoid of any structure or self-consciousness. Hulot isn’t contemptuous of his surroundings as Boudu was; he, like the Tramp, projects an aura of mystification with the world around him, always one, two, a hundred steps behind.
Tati’s primary interest here would appear to be the character’s homes and how they contrast and comment on their inhabitants. Hulot’s apartment, established in a classic bit, appears to have been designed by a hyper, over-imaginative child: doors, stairs and ramps appear for their own dream sake divorced from any practical purpose. The exterior of Hulot’s home is a silent marvel, a design that (poignantly) reaffirms the beautiful, common textures and rituals of our lives. The family’s house is one of those 2001 competence at the expense of personality nightmares crossed with the board game “Mouse Trap”; the family spends as much time shifting from room to room (each of which having to be allowed to fulfill its maximum capacity for use) as Hulot does climbing his stairs, but they carry on with a joyless, sad manner of manufactured obligation that chokes the love of process away; this family’s having coffee before they’ve adequately set the dinner table for the dinner they barely remember eating.
Mon oncle has a dreamy, slow start, but the jokes accumulate like a snowball down a hill, and soon you find yourself overwhelmed with Tati’s layered, restrained, seemingly free-form framing, his world falls apart with a smirk and a sure hand. A party sequence, near the middle of the picture, is one of the most impressively sustained bits of comic dementia I’ve ever seen, managing to turn a series of ridiculously elaborate walkways (all to protect the non-existent garden) into something elusive, unshakable and distinctly menacing. Hulot is to meet the family’s neighbor, in the hope that he settle down and stay out of everyone’s way, but he quickly gets distracted with the boy and a plant, while the rest of the family and guests find themselves grappling with an already troublesome fountain (the mother only keeps it on for guests, who slip in and out with maddening frequency) that has broken. Business transactions are had, banalities are exchanged, all as tables, snacks and chairs are moved from one end of the yard to another, and all in accordance with those damn walkways. Tati ratchets the tension, and you slowly realize that he’s effectively squeezed you from laughter to an authentic discomfort: the stifling, formal hypocrisy of the upper class has become a rounded, authentic, original vision of hell.
Mon oncle is overlong, and Tati’s technique here ultimately inspires more exhaustion than elation (though one imagines this is also purposeful) but the film is justifiably revered, and ends on an unexpectedly devastating implication. We’re conditioned by Chaplin to expect this type of picture to go for the tear ducts at the end, to mourn the little guy swallowed by society, but Tati sends his Hulot on his way toward another setting to fumble (the father’s plan finally taking hold) and the film, surprisingly, views this as a positive. The father, at odds with his little boy throughout much of the picture, is finally allowed a moment of grace and mischief that’s unobstructed by the inattentive, bumbling uncle. Hulot’s dreaminess ultimately revealed to be as insidious a form of self-delusion as the house and all its baffling gadgetry.
★★★★
May 5th, 2008 at 11:59 am
The Hulot movies are so far removed from what passes for comedy today that they can take a while to warm up to. They did for me anyway.
There hasn’t been anything quite like them since the silent days. Peter Sellers comes very close at times. Rowan Atkinson seemed to try to capture the spirit with Bean, but he was only partly successful.
There’s an innocence to Hulot and a kind of sweetness that isn’t overstated, but it helps keep him from being a completely frustrating/irritating character.
May 5th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
The first and only Tati film I’ve seen is M. HULOT’S HOLIDAY. I watched it with a French cineaste who gave me the background 411. You’re right in your take on Tati’s soft style, and I found myself washed in it without ever really laughing that much but I did eventually take to Hulot’s gentleness. I watched the first few minutes of PLAYTIME which look labored but in beautiful 70 mm.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I haven’t seen M. HULOT’S HOLIDAY but I look forward to it, and that film provoked one of the more moving things I’ve read in a Pauline Kael review (that’s saying something):
“People are at their most desperate when they are working at enjoying themselves;”
That’s one of those seemingly effortless cut to the heart of the matter Kaelisms that’s always stuck with me.