Customer Reviews

Mon Oncle Antoine (The Criterion Collection)

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MON ONCLE ANTOINE is about rural life and the coming of age of a teenage boy whose uncle is an embalmer.Slow moving but immensely rewarding;one can feel the director's tenderness for his characters.The film can be hard to appreciate if you don't speak FRENCH or don't know much about the aspects of rural life in QUEBEC and it's mentality..JUTRA the director, plays a little part in the general store.JEAN DUCEPPE who plays ANTOINE was a very well known actor in QUEBEC;he formed his own theater company in 1973 ... Along the way,the teenage boy also makes his sexual awakening in a funny voyeurism scene in which some women comes to the general store to renew their wardrobes.The film remains the director's most acclaim work.JUTRA sadly died of the ALZHEIMER disease in 1986.

This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

Mon Oncle Antoine is a film that has been regarded as the best Canadian film of all time. I can say it is one of the best I have seen also.

The film is directed by Claude Jutra and is about a teenage boy living in an asbestos mining town in rural Quebec during Christmas in the 1940's. He works for his uncle who is the town mortician. The film has great cimenatography and has some great scenes of the town.

The DVD has some good special features also on this double disc set.

Disc one contains the film with both the original French language track and an optional English dub, plus the theatrical trailer.

Disc two contains a 2007 documentary on the film's production, a 2002 biography of Claude Jutra, and "A Chairy Tale" a 1957 short film that Jutra co-directed with Norman McLaren. (This film is about a chair the moves around to avoid being sit on.)

This film is very good and I highly recommend it.

Quebec cinema has usually run circles around Anglo-Canadian productions, and this is the cream of the crop. Ageless!

This film has consistently been voted as the greatest Canadian film ever made in various critics polls over the years. Revered New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael hailed it as a small masterpiece upon original release but it is the sort of slow, intimate, character-based drama that has never achieved the sort of wide appeal (outside of Canada) that more plot focused films have. Watching some of the supplementary material on the Criterion Collection disc, it is also clear that there are many cultural references in the film that will mean more to a Canadian (particularly a French Canadian) than to other viewers.

The film meanders amiably along, capturing in unhurried pace the life of rural 1940's Quebec, in this case an abestos mining town. The main characters are Benoit, an orphaned boy, the local undertaker Antoine and his assistant Fernand played by the director himself Claude Jutra.
Eventually the film reaches its big set-piece, a long, extended night sequence where Benoit and Antoine (covered in furs) must traverse the icy, snow covered landscape via sled to retrieve the body of a boy who has died at a farmhouse.

The director was hailed as the new savior of Canadian cinema at the time of release, but unfortunately never achieved the level of success later on that he did with this film. He mysteriously disappeared one winter and his body was discovered the following spring after the ice had thawed...a simple note attached, "My name is Claude Jutra".

Often voted Canada's greatest film... well... it's a damn good mood piece, anyway.

A splice of life story set in Québec of the 1940s, starting with seemingly random glimpses of life in an asbestos mining town as seen thru the eyes of a teenage boy. Then, halfway, it assumes something like a plot (which I found engrossing) before ending at a scene that doesn't tie things up neatly. In other words, an art house film.

Since I grew in a small town, I immediately felt immersed in the small town setting despite the cultural differences. I liked the natural look of the cinematography, the location shooting, the sense of improvisation in certain scenes and the use of non-actors -- even in a couple lead roles. Altho most of the vital roles were turned over to some very good French Canadian actors -- including the director himself -- Claude Jutra.

Despite the political turmoil in Québec at the time of the filming, the political overtones were reduced to mere hints. That may have been a lucky thing cuz the film now has a timeless quality.

Here's a rare opportunity to experience something of the nearby mystery that is Québéc.

I can't say this film makes the same stunning impression on me that it did the first time I saw it in a theatre (in 1971) but it's still an absolute gem! I looked for it on VHS for years in America to no avail, couldn't even find it on a couple of trips to Canada although I know it was released on VHS at one time there. When Image released it on DVD several years ago I of course immediately purchased it. That release wasn't bad but the Criterion version is far better. It's from a new high definition transfer in the proper widescreen aspect ratio (the Image version was full screen 4:3) and looks better than I remember it ever looking in theaters. The second disc contains a 2007 one hour documentary on the film itself as well as a 2002 feature length (82 minutes) documentary on director Claude Jutra, both made for Canadian television I believe. An early short by Jutra and the theatrical trailer are also included. Despite the usual Criterion premium price this edition is highly recommended if you love this film as much as I do...or even if you've never seen it and want to have a great movie experience. It's in French with or without English subtitles. A dubbed English track is also on the disc if you prefer that (I don't!).

After reading the other reviews, I was prepared for a heart-warming, coming of age movie. What I got was dark, slow, hard to follow and boring. The movie I bought from Amazon was a prior rental in the U.S., so maybe something was cut out of it that made it such a classic, but from what I saw it was just 90 minutes worth of "stuff". There was no real "coming of age" event in the whole movie. He did wrestle with a girl about his own age for a minute or so, but no emotions, or "sexual awakening" was ever revealed.

I am not going to recapitulate the plot or attempt to compete with other reviews; Ebert's is excellent, and another, at dvdtalk, gives an excellent discussion of political and other details that make the film more understandable.

What I find surprising is that no one seems to have realized that the director, Claude Jutra, seems to have made this film into what would turn out to be a play-within-a-play, the larger play being his own life, since, as in this movie, Jutra's own body disappeared in the winter, to be recovered later (in 1986). Jutra's death was presumably a suicide. The disappearance of the body was foreshadowed in this film, and the exact mode of death was described in one of his other films. In other words, I believe that he choreographed his own death.

The film has some fascinating touches, such as Benoit's irreverent boyishness being characterized by his jumping across the tops of church pews. The irony of the Lord's name being taken in vain while putting up Christmas decorations is outstanding. There they are in what amounts to a Godless company town, handling the decorations: "Careful with the Virgin Mary. She's touchy." The question about the figurine Jesus, "Where is Jesus?" is obviously being asked in reference to their family, or their entire community or perhaps mankind as a whole. The answer, "Ask the Holy Ghost, he knows everything," is appropriately irreverent: even the priest was drinking on the job there, so no human could answer the question.

What I did when watching this for the first time was to play it with the dubbed English at the same time as displaying the subtitles. The difference in the translations is interesting. One can get a better understanding of what was intended by comparing the two translations. The differences are usually minor; for example, in putting up the decorations, the verbal "Get going, it's urgent" is "Come on, now. We're in a rush." Most of the time, I found the dubbed translation to be superior and less awkward. Regarding a new shipment of jam, the dubbed statement was "You know very well I'm not crazy about it" compared to the subtitled "You know I don't like that brand." The dubbed, "Have a nice breakfast" becomes the subtitled "Enjoy your breakfast." There are differences, though. The dubbed, "I'll work on the bills with you" becomes "I've come to do my bills," which are different in their implications.

Good flick, except that there should have been one more scene before the end. Benoit finally made the mistake of taking a swig of his uncle's booze while his uncle was unconscious on the sleigh, which resulted in him pushing the horse too much so that the coffin they were taking back fell off. They never found it, and the viewer can only infer how it ended up back at the house of the dead boy, which Benoit discovered when he peeped in the window after traveling back along the route to try and find the coffin. I don't mind some things being left unsaid or to the imagination of the viewer, but in this case, I object. I understand that this omission could have been the director's attempt to symbolize the mystery of death, or the isolation of rural Canadians, whatever--it didn't work for me, though.

I couldn't help but wonder if the liquor company BOLS had paid for product placement.

An interesting little film, focussing on a boy called Benoit and his uncle Antoine. The film shot with beautiful scnerario powered by decent performences by almost all the cast. Jacques Gagnon is very precise and brilliant as Benoit, his facial expressions alone are enough to communicate to you his feelings. Olivette Thibault as benoit's frisky aunt delivers a decent, sattisfying performence. 'Mon oncle Antoine' will surely give you a ride of rollercoaster of emotions, there are moments you will laugh, smile and even feel sad. A film where you will witness every moment in life through the eyes of a young boy, not to be missed.

Un film totalement magique, pour apprendre à aimer un peu plus la France des Amériques !