Screening "Mon Oncle"

In collaboration with the Institut Français, the Alliance Française in Venice, Les FIlms de Mon Oncle and Iuav University, Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana hosts at the Teatrino a screening of the film Mon Oncle (110', 1958) directed by Jacques Tati.

The screening of the film Mon Oncle is followed by a panel discussion with the moderator Marco Bertozzi, professor of cinema at the university Iuav, with Jean-Louis Cohen, curator of the French Pavilion 2014, Stéphane Goudet, Tati expert, and Macha Makeïeff, stage director and set and costume designer.

For the 14th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, the French Pavilion “Modernity, promise or menace?”, is dedicated to the story of the architecture of residential complexes built in concrete. The curator Jean-Louis Cohen puts into question the illusions created by a modernity that is only focused on progress, wellbeing and standardization. Mon Oncle, in particular the set of the family villa, was a source of inspiration for one of the four rooms of the Pavilion, which has won a Special mention from the Biennale Jury for having discussed the consequences of the successes and failures linked to a utopian vision of modernity.

Young Gérard likes to spend time with his uncle, Mr. Hulot, a dreamy and bohemian character who lives in a popular and joyful area of the Parisian suburb. Gérard’s parents, Mr. and Mrs Arpel, on the other hand, live in a modern and luxury villa, where they lead a monotonous and sanitized life. One day, after Gérard returns from one of his jaunts with his uncle, Mr. Arpel decides to keep his son away from Mr. Hulot. He then attempts to find him a job in his plastic factory while his wife sets up a date with one of their neighbors…

Released in 1958, Mon Oncle is Tati’s third feature film and one of the burlesque masterpieces of French cinema. Mr. Hulot is again the protagonist through whom the director denounces, with humor and delicacy, the changes in French society in the decades after World War II. The modern world is embodied by Mr. ad Mrs. Arpel while Mr. Hulot and his neighborhood represent the “old” world. Through Tati’s almost geometrical directing and a clever use of sound, Mon Oncle bears witness to the growing modernity and to the artificiality of the relationships that derive from it. More than half a century after its first release, Mon Oncle remains just as funny and striking.

Jacques Tati stated “There is no message in my film. However, I can say that the indifference of the modern world strikes me. What do success, comfort and progress mean if no one knows anyone else, if we tear down buildings built by hand to construct new ones in concrete […]?”. Perhaps, like Macha Makeïeff pointed out, his goal was to “tell the aesthetic and implacable beauty of Mon Oncle, the refinement and the listening knowingly to modernity as a playground for faltering adults who dreamed, desired and built this same modernity.

In collaboration with the Institut Français, the Alliance Française de Venise, Les Films de Mon Oncle, and with the Università IUAV di Venezia, Dipartimento di Culture del Progetto - Laboratorio di teoria delle immagini.