Travels With My Film Life: France... A Visit to "Mon Oncle"

Here I be in France.... 1958 and watching the half-mime world of Jacques Tati as he bumbles through his struggle with the modern world... on his bicycle... trailing his delighted "nephew" and a string of dogs and street characters. He be bewildered by his brother-in-law's modern house a la mode: all robotic, automated, geometric steel and plastic. And Bro-in-law is being chivvied by his wife to find her brother (Tati/Mon Oncle) a job in his plastic tubing factory. Tati's attempts at attending an interview and a day at work be much cause for Keatonesque mayhem.

I am a late convert to Tati and we do really enjoy this one. "Mon Oncle" is a satire on the craze for the modern and at the same time a fond farewell to a way of life disappearing under the bulldozers.