Meu Tio da América

This film was made with the cooperation of psychologist Henri Laborit. It's broken down, like a greek drama, into narrative episodes and odes where the chorus, in this case psychologist Laborit, explains the meaning of the episodes. I love this movie because it makes clear the pretenance to everyday life of a discourse which is very rich as an interpretation of life, in exactly Matthew Arnold's sense, but at the same time so abstract that most people just, for example, reading Laborit's "Decoding the human message" would not see the immediate relevance of what was being said to their own daily concerns. I use this film to teach psychology. I open my intro class with it every term. Learning to read this film is learning to think like a psychologist. In the film, we cut from scenes of the human characters involved in various relationships to Laborit showing how lab rats react to stress under various conditions. The result is not dry or pedantic but funny as hell. It comes off as the rats doing a low burlesque of the human comedy. We also see the characters as children and as adults and scenes from various formative episodes along the way. When Laborit says "a person is a memory which acts" it seems a powerful commentary on what we are seeing on screen. We see one character as a tiny girl interacting with her factory worker father. He is a communist and he is teaching his newly articualte baby girl to repeat after him "USA go home". Watching this, I remember being taught to sing "Jeusus loves me" shortly after I started talking. This film is funny and wonderful dealing with the thing which matters most of all, the question of what it means to be a person.

On paper this isn't really my kind of movie by a country mile but I'm always ready to see anything that Depardieu decides to appear in and Nicole Garcia is not too hard to take either if anybody asks you but then you have to factor in Resnais, a loose canon whichever way you slice it, a guy who's as likely to film a Viennese Operetta with a static camera as lay a metaphysical treatise on an unsuspecting audience. He's also something of a risk-taker and here he does himself no favors in the opening minutes by giving the impression we've wandered into a lecture complete with lantern-slides. But soon you find yourself drawn into the three loosely connected stories and a little later you find you've surrendered completely to the left-handed charm. Not for the faint-hearted or the popcorn brigade. 8/10

I just saw this - after having heard of it, seen it on video store shelves for over a decade. A movie that begins oddly, drily, repays anyone who pays attention for at least 15 minutes with something absorbing, warm, fascinating and often quite funny.

It is one of the most thought-provoking movies I've ever seen in my life. I disagree that its appeal is limited to intellectuals or those who like the director (I'd seen only Last Year at Marienbad, couldn't tell hide nor tail, and that was all I thought of Resnais).

Depardieu's character is one we can relate to fully as much as we do to Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman - but all the principal characters (except the cold as ice boss of Depardieu) are greatly sympathetic.

This is just so moving and powerful a movie about the life we life - our work, our anger, our sorrow, our obsession, our ambition, our ideals and the way we deal with the things we want in life. Just stay with it for 15-20 minutes - you'll be fascinated. This is truly superb, truly absorbing, truly unique.

I've seen this film twice. The first time, it told me how to view the world. The second time, it represented my view of the world. Everyone's actions are determined by a small number of forces, it says. Everyone's behavior fits into only four categories, it says. And yet, it presents such a wide range of emotions, actions, and thoughts that it seems to contradict its very hypothesis. And yet, it doesn't. Turn your brain on and watch this; give it time to sink in, then watch it again. I guarantee it will change your way of looking at the world. The editing is top-notch, and Resnais is at the top of his form, as he was 20 years earlier with Hiroshima Mon Amour. The ending is a stunner, and it encapsulates the film while at the same time extending its meaning. The cinematography and message will remind you of Resnais' Night and Fog. Brilliant performances from all three leads and Laborit. Give it time, use your brain, and view it multiple times. You will be rewarded.

Based on the writings of French physician/philosopher Henri Laborit: the lives of three individuals are chronicled and analyzed using theories of how human lives and behaviours are formed and the results of inner and outer conflicts due to early programming. The individuals are René (Gérard Depardieu), a devout Catholic who left behind his farming family and became an executive in a textile factory; Janine (Nicole Garcia) whose family cut ties with her when she pursued a successful career in acting; and Jean (Roger Pierre) who was born into wealth and works in politics and writing.

It is clear at the beginning that this film is unconventional. The opening sequence has three simultaneous narrations of the early lives of the main characters and it takes a very long time - much longer than most narrations take. But it all pays off. The information is valuable for the fascinating stories of what happens to the characters later on.

The acting of the three leads is solid. Among some of the best scenes: Depardieu and Pierre each have at least one hissy fit moment in which they are hilarious, chewing up the scenery and everyone else in it.

The Depardieu story is particularly fascinating as it accurately displays the unethical viciousness of the corporate world. (Notice the film takes place in 1980, a decade in which corporate deviousness would begin to take over the world and worsen with each decade that followed.) The René story can resonate with anyone who has spent any time in corporate purgatory.

The frequent narration of the film is intriguing in its observations of human behaviour using three fine examples. The style of the film is experimental. Usually, this means disaster but in the case of "Mon Oncle d'Amérique", the experimental style not only works; it works quite well. - dbamateurcritic

RATING: 9 out of 10

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT: Screenplay by Jean Gruault.