Mon Oncle (1958)

While I didn’t find this quite as delightful as PlayTime or Trafic, there are still some wonderful visuals in this Tati outing. Monsieur Hulot’s nephew prefers spending time with his playful uncle rather than with his upwardly mobile parents in their ultra modern home. The house provides plenty of gags: a fish fountain that’s only turned on for the right kind of guests, large round upstairs windows that look like eyes, uncomfortable furniture constantly needing to be moved to the various zones, and garden paths that follow no logical direction. The film isn’t just stuck in the modern either, there is plenty to be experience in Hulot’s unimproved neighborhood and at the plastics factory where his sister’s husband gets him a job. I actually watched both the English and German versions of the film and discovered that the dialogue falls to the wayside when you don’t have to pay attention to subtitles and the film becomes just visual. It results in two very different experiences.

Oscar Win: Best Foreign Language Film