La maison de Jean-Jacques

This short, nominated for an Oscar, follows Jack from humble biginnings to his "success", outlining the steps along the way. The National Film Board of Canada produced this thoughtful and provoctive little short, which is moderately difficult to obtain, unless one is Canadian. In print through the NFBC itself, you can go to their website (I don't recall the address at the moment) to find ordering instructions. I found the site by searching for the National Film Board of Canada. Well worth the effort. Recommended.

This is a prototypical 1960's idea that often we are unhappy with our lives, but the alternative can be devastating. Riding the coattails of Jack and the Beanstalk, Jacques sell his wrecked car for some magic beans. He meets Mr. Giant (who is smaller than he is) and steals a magic mirror which drives him to be a ruthless businessman. Not particularly original, but it has its moments.

This has a cumulative narration a little like the "12 Days of Christmas" as each sentence evolves then repeats the preceding one. That makes for quite an entertaining appraisal of the life of "Jack" as he lives in an house just like everyone else's and goes to work to pay the bills day in, day out. Then his car blows up and he trades in the wreck for some beans! His wife goes potty and he's relegated to the floor that night. In the morning, yep, there's a beanstalk that "Jack" climbs and his encounter with the "giant" sends him scurrying back down with a mirror that he's pinched. This gives him self confidence, a belief that he can achieve anything and next thing, well his house is a bit different from his neighbours - but is he fulfilled? The animation is a bit limited, I felt, but the pace of the thing; the fun narration and the underlying story of grass always being greener and the futile search for perfection is quite well delivered.

This National Film Board cartoon uses the Jack and the Beanstalk motif to attack the uniformity of the middle class. That is a fairly easy target, and hardly an original one. In fact, that very same theme, with imagery not dissimilar to that employed in this short, appeared in "Little Boxes", a song written by Malvina Reynolds and released both by herself and by Pete Seeger in the mid '60's, prior to the release of "The House That Jack Built".

This cartoon promotes the facile notion that being rich is really no better than being poor. Comforting thought, yes. True, no.

With its conventional approach to conventional themes, this film about conformity manages to become the object of its own opprobrium, its award nominations notwithstanding.