Mon Oncle

The film, Mon Oncle (1958), is about a man, Monsieur Hulot, and his day to day experiences involving his sister and brother-in-law. Director Jacques Tati implements a rather unique filming style, focusing more on actions and displaying the lifestyles of the characters with music and sound effects, rather than telling the story in the typical manner with dialogue. None of the characters speak until about 6 minutes or so into the film and yet the audience still feels engaged and fully up to speed with what is occurring even though there is no narration. It begins by showing the town and the meticulous activities of its residents, and then introduces the main character, Hulot, shortly after introducing dialogue into the story. The film focuses on the themes of modernization and progress. The Arpel’s are living in an immensely modernized home with all sorts of gadgets that Hulot just doesn’t understand. Hulot is trying to fit in to the rapidly progressing lifestyle in the city and even tries to get a job, which results in failure. Tati created a comedic film about the rapid modernization in the world and how the simple man has to adapt to the changes.

Tati certainly focused his efforts as a filmmaker on details and content. Every scene was planned out perfectly so that Tati could capture the right shot, thus conveying his desired effect on the audience. One specific example was when the man in the market got his pants soaking wet. A car drives through a puddle, splashing water on half the man’s pants.  Then Hulot rides his bike through the puddle and you can see that there is a mechanism in the puddle that sprays the rest of the man’s pants with water. Tati wanted to get the right comedic effect out of the scene, and when the bike was incapable of producing his desired splash factor he implemented the effect on his own. Though it seems that Tati has a somewhat A.D.D. methodology for filmmaking, it isn’t really justifiable since his corrections aren’t exactly subtle.