Mon Oncle d'Amerique (1980) - Resnais
Built
around physician/philosopher Henri Laborit's ideas on evolutionary
biology, the film follows three subjects from childhood - Jean (Roger
Pierre) a writer from a privileged background, Jannine (Nicole Garcia),
an actress from a proletariat household and René (Gerard Depardieu), a famer's son/struggling everyman. Using lab rats as an example, Laborit
lays out how people avoid painful situations by moving, and
if there is no escape, psychosomatic symptoms develop. And in defensive
action, people turn violent against each other. But the film is much
more than that. Resnais slightly interweaves these 3 lives without
turning them into lab rats. Their melodramatic stories are rendered
sympathetically and their problems relatable. The film is not cynical in
any way, except for the notion of that mythic 'American uncle' who'd solve all our
problems but never actually shows up.
Resnais counters Laborit's deterministic
view with poignant montage sequences, constant cutting back to childhood
memories and old movie clips featuring the heroes of our protagonists.
The beauty of Mon Oncle d'Amerique is that it leaves me with more
questions than answers. Are we all prisoners of our biological origins,
that if one brick from our building blocks is removed, we are bound to
crumble? Can our good memories trump our childhood traumas? Are we
capable of leaping over our biological makeup of self preservation and
think of the others? Beautifully constructed, playful and thoroughly thought
provoking, Mon Oncle d'Amerique is one of my new favorites.
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