Mon Oncle Antoine (1971)
The title of this remarkable French-Canadian film tells us two important things: the first is that Antoine is going to be a focal character, and the second tells us something about perspective. All the happenings in the general store of a rural Quebecois mining town, are observed and scrutinized by young Benoit: the adopted 14-year old boy of the film’s titular character. When Benoit is watching the adults go about their business, setting up a nativity scene and preparing the store for Christmas, he is silent, watching. Often he is shown observing an event or confrontation through a plane of glass, signifying a metaphorical dissonance between him and the adult world. He sees his aunt flirt with the younger store clerk, and then cozy up with her husband, Antoine, only a few minutes later. Does he judge them? Or is he learning from them?
Curiously, the movie does not open with these main characters. We are first introduced to Jos Poulin, a disgruntled asbestos miner who is fed up with taking orders from his English-speaking boss. He quits his job and leaves his family for the winter months to work from a lumber lodge where he can be more independent. He soon becomes bored with this work and returns home early, but during his absence, his eldest son becomes sick with fever. I have the sense that this man characterizes an important parable or symbol related to rural Quebecois life and attitude of the early 1940s, although my knowledge of the history of the region is borderline-nonexistent. I do know that the events depicted in the film are a precursor to the late 1940s Asbestos Strike, a formative event that lead to the Quiet Revolution in Quebec. Poulin’s non-committal attitude, contempt for the English-speakers, and hard agrarian lifestyle, may represent the social conditions of the time period that were the spark of political change.
The bravado sequence of the film involves Benoit and Antoine’s journey to pick up the body of a 15-year old boy from an outlying property, who has succumbed to fever during the harsh winter months. Benoit is at first excited to be allowed to accompany his uncle on this very adult journey. By the end of the trip, Benoit’s innocence has been lost and the boy has come-of-age. They arrive at the house and Antoine, who has been drowning himself in alcohol, obliviously sits down to a meal offered by the dead boy’s mother. The weight of the situation is dawning on Benoit who declines food. The following moments are uncomfortably, but beautifully edited together, as Benoit glances up at the dead boy’s mother, then turns to the daughter, and the two younger boys who seem oblivious to the tragedy. Finally, Benoit’s gaze settles upon the door of a back room, cracked open only a couple inches, and beyond it lies the impenetrable darkness of death. This is a heavy, emotional scene, and it presents a significant change in Benoit. On the way back home, Antoine, who Benoit looks up to and admires as a responsible adult, drinks himself to unconsciousness. Then the coffin falls off the back of the carriage. In a drunken haze, Antoine confesses all his fears and resentments to young Benoit, who is now faced with some very adult decisions.
Mon Oncle Antoine has been voted the most important Canadian film of all time for three decades straight. Its effect is subtle, but the film gingerly draws you into to its hard, simple world, and gives you an exclusive glimpse into a day in the life of its characters. This is a movie that touches upon something sincerely profound about the human spirit, yet I find myself in a struggle to articulate this feeling. Consider the film as an authentic glance into another way of life, at another place in time, and we watch it all with reflective, silent curiosity, just as Benoit watches passively through glass window panes.
Curiously, the movie does not open with these main characters. We are first introduced to Jos Poulin, a disgruntled asbestos miner who is fed up with taking orders from his English-speaking boss. He quits his job and leaves his family for the winter months to work from a lumber lodge where he can be more independent. He soon becomes bored with this work and returns home early, but during his absence, his eldest son becomes sick with fever. I have the sense that this man characterizes an important parable or symbol related to rural Quebecois life and attitude of the early 1940s, although my knowledge of the history of the region is borderline-nonexistent. I do know that the events depicted in the film are a precursor to the late 1940s Asbestos Strike, a formative event that lead to the Quiet Revolution in Quebec. Poulin’s non-committal attitude, contempt for the English-speakers, and hard agrarian lifestyle, may represent the social conditions of the time period that were the spark of political change.
The bravado sequence of the film involves Benoit and Antoine’s journey to pick up the body of a 15-year old boy from an outlying property, who has succumbed to fever during the harsh winter months. Benoit is at first excited to be allowed to accompany his uncle on this very adult journey. By the end of the trip, Benoit’s innocence has been lost and the boy has come-of-age. They arrive at the house and Antoine, who has been drowning himself in alcohol, obliviously sits down to a meal offered by the dead boy’s mother. The weight of the situation is dawning on Benoit who declines food. The following moments are uncomfortably, but beautifully edited together, as Benoit glances up at the dead boy’s mother, then turns to the daughter, and the two younger boys who seem oblivious to the tragedy. Finally, Benoit’s gaze settles upon the door of a back room, cracked open only a couple inches, and beyond it lies the impenetrable darkness of death. This is a heavy, emotional scene, and it presents a significant change in Benoit. On the way back home, Antoine, who Benoit looks up to and admires as a responsible adult, drinks himself to unconsciousness. Then the coffin falls off the back of the carriage. In a drunken haze, Antoine confesses all his fears and resentments to young Benoit, who is now faced with some very adult decisions.
Mon Oncle Antoine has been voted the most important Canadian film of all time for three decades straight. Its effect is subtle, but the film gingerly draws you into to its hard, simple world, and gives you an exclusive glimpse into a day in the life of its characters. This is a movie that touches upon something sincerely profound about the human spirit, yet I find myself in a struggle to articulate this feeling. Consider the film as an authentic glance into another way of life, at another place in time, and we watch it all with reflective, silent curiosity, just as Benoit watches passively through glass window panes.
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