Mon Oncle (1959.)
His first colour film continues to expresses the Old Things Good/ Modern Things Bad theme in the bluntest way possible. While his sister and his nephew live in a gadget filled modern house, just around the corner, a short bicycle ride away Hulot resides in a bucolic French market square where everybody is relaxed and casual but relaxed and casual in that shoulder-shrugged French manner that seems to harbour a multitude of grievances and is in no way easy going.
The film is both miraculous and inexplicable, meticulous and profligate. Everything seems to be organised to the nearest millimetre yet parts of it seem to chunter on to no great end. Counting the laughs in this film would take the use of both hands, but only just. The marvel though is that each of those laughs would be a glorious roar of satisfaction and the space between them would be filled with smiles of quiet pleasure.
Its digs at Petty Bourgeoisie pretension are a little obvious and petit, but it contains visual wonders such as the journey to Hulot's flat which involves a zigzagged trajectory through a three storey building. The intricacies of the design are such a delight, you can see ideas popping into existence that will be exploited for decades to come in films like Delicatessen.
His first colour film continues to expresses the Old Things Good/ Modern Things Bad theme in the bluntest way possible. While his sister and his nephew live in a gadget filled modern house, just around the corner, a short bicycle ride away Hulot resides in a bucolic French market square where everybody is relaxed and casual but relaxed and casual in that shoulder-shrugged French manner that seems to harbour a multitude of grievances and is in no way easy going.
The film is both miraculous and inexplicable, meticulous and profligate. Everything seems to be organised to the nearest millimetre yet parts of it seem to chunter on to no great end. Counting the laughs in this film would take the use of both hands, but only just. The marvel though is that each of those laughs would be a glorious roar of satisfaction and the space between them would be filled with smiles of quiet pleasure.
Its digs at Petty Bourgeoisie pretension are a little obvious and petit, but it contains visual wonders such as the journey to Hulot's flat which involves a zigzagged trajectory through a three storey building. The intricacies of the design are such a delight, you can see ideas popping into existence that will be exploited for decades to come in films like Delicatessen.
