Mon Oncle [DVD] [UK Import]

I fist saw this film in a Manhattan art house at about the age of 15. My girlfriend who was a second-year French student dragged me to every French movie in town. I was in love with her so I followed her around like a puppy-dog even though I had not a word of French at the time and most of the films didn't even have subtitles. I was absolutely enchanted! This film has a lyrical beauty which cannot be put into words. Jaques Tati is often called the Chaplin of France and not undeservedly although their styles are different as night and day. His iconic character "Monsieur Hulot" is nothing like Chaplin's little tramp. Instead of being the center of everything, he is an observer. He is almost a fellow member of the audience in a sense. You will come away from this film realizing you never really got a good look at him. In the entire film he gets not a single closeup. Yet he holds it together in some indescribable way. It is a tale of postwar Paris set in 1958. There are two cities in the film. Old Paris, clinging hopelessly to its comfortable, inefficient, traditions of the past and new Paris of efficiency experts, humming machines and cold modern architecture. M. Hulot and a playful gaggle of street dogs are the only ones who seem to be able to cross the divide between the two cities which is symbolized by a crumbling stone and brick wall. Tati paints old Paris with a loving brush, but seems to accept that it will soon be inevitably lost. New Paris however is portrayed in cool, harsh tones. Everything buzzes, whirrs, hisses and vibrates with mechanical ferocity. His sister Madame Arpel and her husband are the new Paris incarnate. Hulot tries to fit in, but not with much success. He is linked to them only by their son who sees him as a second father. The Arpel house is perhaps the most famous parody of modern architecture ever created. It is actually in many ways attractive, but profoundly "unlivable". The appliances in Madame. Arpel's kitchen appear to have recently escaped from a nuclear weapons research lab. Hulot's interaction with them is truly classic visual comedy. It had been about fifty years since first seeing this film and once again viewing it. My memories of first seeing the film center on the charming escapades of the little dogs who are clearly the only ones at home in both cities. They act like they own the place and as far as the French are concerned, they more or less do. The French don't have a dozen different ways to refer to a dog's main output product for nothing! This Blu-ray is excellent, the film looks crisp and the colors are as I remember them form the movie theater. It has both the French and English releases of the film. The dialog is French in both, but their are a number of differences in the two besides the presence of the subtitles. For instance in the French version the school Hulot's nephew attend has a sign announcing "Ecole" but in the English it is replaced with "School" and the credits are in English. The special features are worthwhile and very French. There is much theorizing and analysis, almost, but not quite to the point of being silly. Check out the piece on fashion "La Mode" which is an interview with the curator of a fashion museum. Yet another French woman for me to fall in love with! Oh, did I mention that this film is totally hilarious?

This is a very gentle view of the changing of lifestyle in a village in France not long after the war. While Modernity has settled in among the old crumbling village, the contrast in social connections is shown, but gently, the message is amusing, not pompous nor browbeating. I laughed when I first saw this with my parents. Jacques Tati is a quiet comic. My guess the time frame is about 1956, judging from the "new" cars, that I remembered as new at the time. Nostalgia, but not weepy, a mild kind of acceptance for change. The modern housewife is so obsessed with being up to date, her kitchen is a mini factory. A guest looks around the spartan living room and remarks there isn't much furniture. There isn't. This is humorous because it pokes fun, yet is not hilarious. However, it also is very serious about the encroaching limitations of Modernity for its sake alone. It's a cozy, settle in with a throw, a hot beverage, and relax. Look through the window of the tv and enjoy another 'world'.

This is a very unusual movie, for me at least. There is very little dialogue here. The fascination is with an art deco house built with ultra technology in every sense, in every part of the house, inside and out. A house built with lines and corners, mostly open spaces, and very little color. And an almost "lack" of furniture, which to me emphasizes the extreme lack of personal relationships, of "living". You are immediately faced with the kind of life the couple lives, how phony and ice cold, reaching to an insane level of formality. In one scene, the father eats alone at a small table outside, and then he moves to another small table for coffee. And when a visitor comes, the whole point to the wife is that he/she has comes to see this "magnificent" structure, and so she shows the person around as if the place were a museum and not a home, and then the person leaves. The structure is surrounded by a high tech fence, cutting it off from the natural scenery and normal life outside. The uncle comes periodically to take the boy outside into the real world, where they both thrive in the very typical goings-on and where the young boy gets involved in the play and mischief of the other boys. The difference is striking. This movie is actually a comedy, a satire, where even with such perfection, things break and go haywire. The scene of a party being held there is worth the cost of the movie. Even the people go haywire. They are all stuffed on a very small cement surface outside where there isn't room for even a third of them and so they are falling into a small square pond, and tripping, and whatever. A total disaster. Funny stuff. You can't watch this movie and not react to the total lack of the "personal" here. Again, though, the one exception is the young boy and the uncle who pair up to remove themselves from such an atmosphere by simply leaving for little ventures into the town and enjoying the life where things are personal.

I was just doing a little comparison test here and sure, the BFI dvd picture looks great... but the Blu-Ray is heaps sharper and the colours are brighter and more vivid. This really brings the movie alive. The difference between the warm glow of Mr Hulot's old-fashioned neighbourhood and the bluey-white sterility of his brother-in-law's ultra-modern house is more obvious than ever.(A favorite scene of mine is where the little boy's mother prepares his boiled egg as if it were a dental procedure.)Perhaps you are wondering if upgrading your old copy is worth the cost. I would answer in the affirmative. Not only is the picture better but we also get the English version of Tati's masterpiece ("My Uncle") plus the correct 1.37:1 aspect ratio.A minor quibble on my part. I find that I cannot select subtitles from the Set-Up Menu on neither my Sony nor my LG player. I can manage to get subs via my remote control on the LG but still nothing on the Sony. This might just be a quirk with my particular players but... yeah, I'd thought I'd better warn you on that one.

I've loved this film since I was a child and watched it with my family. I still love it as a pensioner. The humour is whimsical and gentle. The comments the film makes about the aridness of some modern living still speaks today. A comedy that can be enjoyed by all the family. Some may find the film rather slow for modern tastes but I love to savour it and don't find it tedious.

My first "Tati" film. Visual humour throughout, so speaking French is not essential but I think the whole experience would have been better if I did have some understanding of the French language.There's a certain nostalgia present and a sense of innocence, sadly gone from modern times.

The old being replaced by the new . It begins and ends with the sound of jackhammers , as entire brownstone neighborhoods are torn down and replaced by steel and glass . Noisy gadgets too are everywhere ; clicking , buzzing and whirring everywhere you look , and falling victim to the accident prone Mr Bean - like Hulot . I could have maybe been trimmed a bit but still a very funny film . The "new" world Tati is poking fun at here we take totally for granted now .

Jacques Tati at the top of his gamean absolute joy from start to finisheven the kids and doggies are great in itin reply to the first reviewer there are englishsubtitles on the french version but no subtitles at all on the english one they should come up automatically when you insert the disc the subtitle menu is a little confusing when its dark they're on and when it's bright they're off instead of the other way around hope this helps and you get to enjoy this fabulous film the way you want to