Mon Oncle

UPC: 037429155929

Studio: Criterion

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Suitable for Children]

Summary: Five years after his first appearance, Jacques Tati's M. Hulot returns with Mon Oncle, a film set along the dividing line between Paris' past and its future. Aligned (as is the film) with the former, Hulot lives in a colorful, overpopulated Parisian neighborhood and, lacking employment, spends his days waiting to pick up his adoring nephew from school, and subsequently escorting him to his parents' ultra-modern house. Filled with gadgets, some turned on only to impress the neighbors, the house seems designed specifically to frustrate Hulot, who unwittingly disrupts its operations at every opportunity. Concerned about his future, Hulot's relatives attempt to find him gainful employment and pair him off with a neighbor, with little success on either front. The nearly dialogue-free film is less concerned with the family's attempts as they relate to an overall plot, and more interested in how they play into its overall scheme of contrasts and allow for Tati's unmistakable sight-and-sound gag set pieces. ~ Keith Phipps, Rovi

Category: Comedy

Awards: Best Foreign Language Film – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Special Jury Prize – Cannes Film Festival Best Foreign Film – National Board of Review Best Foreign Film – New York Film Critics Circle

Features: Digital transfer, with restored image and sound
Video introduction by writer, director, and performer Terry Jones
"L'?cole des facteurs," the 1947 short film directed by and starring Jacques Tati
Improved English subtitles translation

Mon Oncle

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 04/24/2001

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Pre-1954 Standard

Audio: 1 USA & territories, Canada

Runtime: 116 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) French

Subtitles: English

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Side #1 --
0. Chapters
1. Opening titles [:10]
2. Two sides of the fence [1:10]
3. The Arpel family [1:48]
4. Cars [2:52]
5. Downtown [1:19]
6. M. Hulot [2:03]
7. The car trick [5:21]
8. A visitor [3:08]
9. "As each night" [3:15]
10. A dishonest scale [1:27]
11. The phone call [2:30]
12. The job interview [2:13]
13. The neighbor [3:29]
14. Dinnertime [3:12]
15. The whistle trick [5:55]
16. "It's always his uncle!" [5:54]
17. Sunday morning downtown [4:07]
18. The garden party [6:55]
19. ...that Evening [14:20]
20. M. Hulot at work [6:51]
21. "Happy anniversary!" [1:57]
22. Red plastic sausages [13:30]
23. An evening on the town [3:37]
24. A good morning [2:58]
25. Goodbye M. Hulot [4:58]
26. The airport [2:01]

Brendon Hanley

Like Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton, France's great comic satirist Jacques Tati plays the role of the bumbling innocent. Tati's irreverent, serio-comic Monsieur Hulot films pit the hero's naive charm against the vagaries of the modern world; nowhere is this theme more overt than in the director's first color film, Mon Oncle. Convoluted technological advances turn up in the most unassuming places, and poor Hulot is typically the brunt of the action. Like Chaplin and Keaton before him, Tati uses the character's inherent mildness and some wonderfully choreographed slapstick comedy to underscore his commentary on humanity versus the changes of modern life. Mon Oncle was widely acclaimed, winning the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar as well as a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Perfectionist Tati would wait almost a decade before his next feature, the extraordinary Playtime (1967). ~ Brendon Hanley, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Adelaide Danielli  Actor 
Loriot  Actor 
Yvonne Arnaud  Actor 
Dominique Marie  Actor 
Nicolas Bataille  Actor 
Michel Goyot  Actor 
Denise Peronne  Actor 
Claude Badolle  Actor 
J.F. Martial  Actor 
André Dino  Actor 
Jacques Tati  Director 
Jacques Tati  Producer 
Jacques Tati  Screenwriter 
Jacques Tati  Actor 
Jean-Pierre Zola  Actor 
Alain Becourt  Actor 
Adrienne Servantie  Actor 
Lucien Frégis  Actor 
Betty Schneider  Actor 

Country: France,Italy