Mon Oncle d'Amerique

Rating:
Summary: Minor Resnais
Review: *Mon Oncle d'Amerique* is a smoothly crafted, occasionally funny, but ultimately rather thin exploration of the theories of behavioral psychologist Henri Laborit. Juxtaposing interviews with Laborit that feel like lectures with fictional scenes illustrating his theories, it all feels more than a touch diagrammatic. Laborit's ideas allow Resnais to explore his familiar interests in time and memory, but the film never escapes an air of cute pointlessness. The idea of mixing didactic material with fictional constructions is certainly intriguing, but this example of it isn't much more than a promising sketch.

Though certainly not "sketchy" or "unfinished." With the possible exception of the rather tepid *Je t'aime, Je t'aime,* Resnais seems incapable of making a film that isn't polished to the nines. Once again we're treated to the smooth camera moves of *Marienbad,* the artful editing of *Stavisky* and *Hiroshima, mon amour,* the lovely, delicate shots of the seaside first seen in *Muriel.* Although New Yorker's transfer is never much better than adequate (and would be improved considerably by being presented in a widescreen aspect ratio), it's good enough to prove to any doubters Resnais's consummate technical finesse.

Unfortunately, the film also supports the criticism frequently leveled against the director, that in the pursuit of exquisite form, he abandons all interest in character. I don't agree with this criticism. (Even if I did, I don't know why anyone feels comfortable dismissing "mere" formal perfection as if it were an everyday occurrence.) Nonetheless, with Laborit quietly intoning every few minutes, it's far too obvious that the characters are being pushed this way and that to fit his theories, walking through a demonstration rather than living convincing lives.

Maybe the film needs a bit more skepticism. There are sardonic touches at the edges. For example, when one character high on the bureaucratic ladder arrives at work, everyone in the hall he passes makes a point of shaking his hand. We realize he's fallen when he arrives and everyone looks away from him. There's nothing that undercuts Laborit's basic thesis, however. If Resnais felt as playful with the ideas as he does with the characters (he occasionally has them acting out their aggressions dressed in rat costume, for example), if he weren't so impressed and convinced by them, the film would have more spark. Instead, *Mon Oncle d'Amerique* is a neatly turned experiment, defined and limited by the validity of Laborit's theories.

Rating:
Summary: Minor Resnais
Review: *Mon Oncle d'Amerique* is a smoothly crafted, occasionally funny, but ultimately rather thin exploration of the theories of behavioral psychologist Henri Laborit. Juxtaposing interviews with Laborit that feel like lectures with fictional scenes illustrating his theories, it all feels more than a touch diagrammatic. Laborit's ideas allow Resnais to explore his familiar interests in time and memory, but the film never escapes an air of cute pointlessness. The idea of mixing didactic material with fictional constructions is certainly intriguing, but this example of it isn't much more than a promising sketch.

Though certainly not "sketchy" or "unfinished." With the possible exception of the rather tepid *Je t'aime, Je t'aime,* Resnais seems incapable of making a film that isn't polished to the nines. Once again we're treated to the smooth camera moves of *Marienbad,* the artful editing of *Stavisky* and *Hiroshima, mon amour,* the lovely, delicate shots of the seaside first seen in *Muriel.* Although New Yorker's transfer is never much better than adequate (and would be improved considerably by being presented in a widescreen aspect ratio), it's good enough to prove to any doubters Resnais's consummate technical finesse.

Unfortunately, the film also supports the criticism frequently leveled against the director, that in the pursuit of exquisite form, he abandons all interest in character. I don't agree with this criticism. (Even if I did, I don't know why anyone feels comfortable dismissing "mere" formal perfection as if it were an everyday occurrence.) Nonetheless, with Laborit quietly intoning every few minutes, it's far too obvious that the characters are being pushed this way and that to fit his theories, walking through a demonstration rather than living convincing lives.

Maybe the film needs a bit more skepticism. There are sardonic touches at the edges. For example, when one character high on the bureaucratic ladder arrives at work, everyone in the hall he passes makes a point of shaking his hand. We realize he's fallen when he arrives and everyone looks away from him. There's nothing that undercuts Laborit's basic thesis, however. If Resnais felt as playful with the ideas as he does with the characters (he occasionally has them acting out their aggressions dressed in rat costume, for example), if he weren't so impressed and convinced by them, the film would have more spark. Instead, *Mon Oncle d'Amerique* is a neatly turned experiment, defined and limited by the validity of Laborit's theories.

Rating:
Summary: Most interesting...
Review: ...Especially for those who have read the books from HenriLaborit about behavior studies. Anybody who is interested in knowinghow (and why) it is working inside will appreciate it. Laborit was nota psychologist, but first a surgeon and then switched to fundamental search (specialized at first in anti-pain and reanimation) which led him to what he called "behavioral biology". He got a very sharp viewing of how the building of responses and action-reaction since the amoebia stage have shaped our present behavior. His demonstration of the interaction inside the three levels of the brain is my favorite. Too bad teachers of this sort are not enough.

Rating:
Summary: New Yorker Does well by Resnais
Review: Finally! An affordable New Yorker home release! One of Alain Resnais' more accessible - and funny - films, "Mon Oncle d'Amerique" is also one of his last to find an American distributor. The transfer is less than scintillating, with a picture earning maybe a 2 or a 3 (5 being the highest rating), and the sound getting a 2 or lower. But New Yorker has "enhanced" the subtitles, making them yellow and enormous. Since this is a talkative movie, the subtitles often threaten to subsume the entire picture. But until Criterion deigns to remaster it (with optional subtitles), this is the best we could ask for.

Rating:
Summary: New Yorker Does well by Resnais
Review: Finally! An affordable New Yorker home release! One of Alain Resnais' more accessible - and funny - films, "Mon Oncle d'Amerique" is also one of his last to find an American distributor. The transfer is less than scintillating, with a picture earning maybe a 2 or a 3 (5 being the highest rating), and the sound getting a 2 or lower. But New Yorker has "enhanced" the subtitles, making them yellow and enormous. Since this is a talkative movie, the subtitles often threaten to subsume the entire picture. But until Criterion deigns to remaster it (with optional subtitles), this is the best we could ask for.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible audio and video.
Review: I don't know about the actual movie... The DVD audio is just awful -- imagine the distortion you get when the volume is set higher than cheap computer speakers can handle, now imagine getting this distortion every time somebody speaks no matter what volume your tv is set at.

Also, people move at the wrong speed, and not even a "consistent" wrong speed. The subtitles are part of the picture; they can't be turned off.

Rating:
Summary: Resnais' best film as far as I know.
Review: I haven't seen 'Smoking and Non-Smoking' and not that singing film he did recently, but otherwise I'm pretty well informed about Resnais and amongst his other work I rank this film as being his best.

It lacks many of the 'arty' touches, that Resnais otherwise and most regrettfully endulges in. This one tells it to you straight - most people live lives that resembles what rats do in captivity or otherwise. The comparison is most amusing but there is a very serious side to it as well. In the end Resnais states: "As long as we do not realize that we use the cortex of our brains chiefly in order to dominant others, then nothing can change." Power'full' (powerless really, since directed against power) words indeed.

People break their necks in order to fit in or make a career, which in truth is as rediculous as when Stan Laurel speaks of it in that wonderful short "Their First Mistake". When will this madness of competition between people cease in order to leave room for a competition directed towards your own ability to enhance your consciousness instead? When will competition for competitions sake alone cease, a competition which does not even care about what it is competing about, as, for instance, present competition of market economy, which is just a competition about the 'skills' of cheating one another? That is the question and Resnais doesn't have the answer but at least he poses the question.

Rating:
Summary: Poor DVD quality aside, this release is WELL worth the price
Review: There are certain directors whose films can survive even the worst video transfers, and Resnais is one of them. Not that New Yorker Video should not be chastized for giving us yet another scandalously poor video and audio transfer of a classic film. Rather, one should not let the poor DVD quality deter one from buying this DVD, as Resnais' MON ONCLE d'AMERIQUE is masterful and argueably the director's greatest achievement. To be completely honest, in my humble opinion Resnais is the greatest living director. For what it is worth, I have seen everyone of his feature films, including everything in the 80s and 90s, and I find this picture to be the most compelling. Having carried out his most rigorous investigation of the time and memory of personal consciousness in "Je T'aime, Je T'aime," Resnais' work in the 70s undergoes a gradual shift in emphasis toward a time and memory belonging to community. At the risk of sounding overly reductive, one might locate the decisive moment of this shift in "Providence," in which the radically subjective, stream of consciousness narrative is completely undermined in the film's epilogue. In reflecting on Mon Oncle d'Amerique, I think it is paramount that one sees the film in the context of this decisive shift (which is not to say that Resnais simply abandons his earlier project). The film produces some of the most extraordinary images of time and memory reconfigured from the standpoint of community, and argueably marks the director's crowning achievement. One need look no further than the opening sequence in which a camera circles around a canvas comprised of still shots from scenes in the film, such that already at the film's outset the viewer is confronted with an image of the whole.

Having laid out this context, I strongly disagree with the general presupposition, betrayed in Maltin's summary and many of the customer reviews below, that Resnais has somehow attempted here to illustrate the behavorial theories of Henri Laborit. Resnais himself (in the DVD notes) expressly rejects this reading, which is nowhere corraborated by the film itself. He explains that in the film he has tried to set the biologist's theories and the narrative side by side, such that the two elements can co-exist, without either one dominating the other. The unmistably ambivalent tone of the ending testifies to the success with which Resnais has executed this vision. The superb direction and screenplay are supported by an outstanding score and an excellent cast. I cannot recommend this DVD more highly.

Rating:
Summary: What Film Should Be
Review: This picture has compelling drama that ranks with the height of American film in the '40s and '50s and insightful intellectual themes that proves it to be a forerunner of modern works like "Waking Life." Thoroughly engaging, trying and reasonably positive in the end. A masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: What Film Should Be
Review: This picture has compelling drama that ranks with the height of American film in the '40s and '50s and insightful intellectual themes that proves it to be a forerunner of modern works like "Waking Life." Thoroughly engaging, trying and reasonably positive in the end. A masterpiece.