Mon Oncle Antoine (1971)

 

Benoit lives (for unexplained reasons) at the town’s general store with his aunt and his uncle Antoine – who serves as the town’s undertaker as well as the store owner. Jutra plays the part of the main clerk in the general store, while looked after Benoit and a young girl his age who has also been “adopted,” plus showing out-of-the-ordinary attention to the aunt when Oncle Antoine is away. Benoit’s self-discoveries hinge primarily on sex and death. The final section, with Antoine and Benoit traveling by horse-cart to a nearby village to pick up the body of another 15-year-old who has died, is fraught with drama and strong emotion.  Music is sparsely used, a folk-flavored style on violin, accordion, etc.  One scene where the aunt is singing an unaccompanied folk song in the store to honor a woman who has requested a bridal veil – with the shoppers singing the refrain, beautifully transitions to the upstairs where the two youngsters are discovering one another with the folk song heard in the background downstairs.

The many documentaries on which Jutra worked show their influence in Mon Oncle Antoine, giving it an ultra-realistic air.  The lovely cinematography is beautifully restored by Criterion, in spite of the challenges of some of the realistic lighting, as explained by cinematographer Michel Brault in the extras included on the second DVD of the packed package. By the way, it’s great to have a good print of the delightful “dance” film to music by Ravi Shankar – A Chairy Tale – one of the National Film Board’s prize-winning shorts that everyone should see.  While I still disagree with Criterion’s decision to encode all their soundtracks with Dolby Digital instead of mono or stereo PCM, I do appreciate their offering the mono signals on channels 1 & 2 as an alternative to using the center channel – which usually means a smaller, compromised speaker.

 – John Sunier