Festival de Cannes: Mon Oncle d’Amerique (1980)

In 1977 Alain Resnais released his first film in English called Providence. One of the objectives of that film was to conquer the Anglo-Saxon market. Things didn’t go as planned. The film was a critical triumph in France where it also won 7 Césars, but it didn’t do well in the US, commercially nor critically. It was successful in Great Britain though.

Three years later Mon Oncle d’Amerique appeared. Even though it got mixed reviews in France, it was the director’s most successful film at the box office. Even more surprising was the roaring success the film enjoyed in the US, by the spectators, as well as by critics. At the 1980 Cannes Film Festival, it won Grand Prix of the Jury, as well as the FIPRESCI Prize. Hardly an obvious outcome for a film that uses science to illuminate the fictional stories on display.

Just like with Hiroshima mon amour, the project was initially conceived as a documentary. The subject was the biologist Henri Laborit and his ideas about memory. He answered “I’ll do it but only if someone like Alain Resnais directs it” That project eventually fell through, but the connection was established.

Also from Cannes: Volver (2006)

Later Resnais got the idea to make a film that would be the opposite of conventional filmmaking. Instead of hiding the concepts of the film or make characters the mouthpieces of ideas, why not have a scientist comment on the actions of the characters directly? The film starts with Laborit telling biological facts about mankind. Then it quickly introduces three fictional persons with a narrator giving us the details of their life, like dossiers of them actually existed. (For those of us who know Resnais, it’s a well-known fact that he and his co-writers prepares such files that are given out to the actors before shooting begins.)

Then a fourth person is introduced: Henri Laborit. The narrator gives us the facts about his life in the same way as the other three. Then he talks about himself in a slightly ironical fashion.

A rather unusual structure is thus established. We will follow three characters whose lives will sometimes intersect, and their actions will be commented on by Laborit. However, Resnais doesn’t stop there. Each of the fictional characters sees their life through their respective French movie star. Jean (Roger-Pierre) adores Danielle Darrieux. Janine (Nicole Garcia) is associated with Jean Marais, and René (Gerard Depardieu) filters his life through Jean Gabin.

So the film operates on three layers, at least. Still, the film is surprisingly lucid and easy to follow. Resnais proves once again that an unconventional structure is not necessarily a deterrent for the viewer’s understanding. During the production of his last documentary Le Chant du Styrène (1958), Resnais decided to describe the manufacturing of plastic with alexandrines, written by Raymond Queneau. The producer got upset and made his own version with a traditional narrator. When the two versions were tested, it turned out that Resnais’ rendition actually made more sense to the audience.

Also from Cannes: Dogtooth (2009)

As outlined above, the film may sound didactic and academic, and many of the film’s detractors interpreted the film that way. They saw Laborit’s theories as deterministic and simplistic, but in the process, they missed the fact that his comments are open for interpretation. It’s far from evident that he merely explains the character’s behaviour.

When he describes experiments with rats in an attempt to analyze human traits, Resnais plays around with people wearing rat heads, making sure that the comedy aspect of the film is never lost. The cinematography by Sacha Vierny provides evocative images, and the editing by Albert Jurgenson (both Resnais habitués) lends the film a certain air of mystery, at least during the rapid montage at the film’s beginning.

As so often with Resnais, the film displays an unorthodox way of constructing a movie, but it’s still nothing that is needlessly complicated. The director has said that he wants every element to be as clear as possible, but how the pieces of the puzzle should be assembled is up to the spectator. In one of the first meetings with screenwriter Jean Gruault, he said that he only knew two things about the film: That it would feature accordion music on the soundtrack, and the title. The titular uncle is referred to several times in different contexts and whether he epitomizes a sign of hope or resignation is, again up to the single viewer.

The film is definitely among the more accessible in Resnais’ filmography and could serve as an excellent introduction to one of the strongest and strangest oeuvres in cinema.