Hulot was the hero of "Monsieur Hulot's Holiday," but in "Mon Oncle," he is a lost soul, unemployed, bemused and confused by the modern world. His sister Madame Arpel (Adrienne Servantie) believes she can help him. She lives with her husband Monsieur Arpel (Jean-Pierre Zolla) and their young son Gerard (Alain Becourt) in a futuristic architectural monstrosity, and a great deal of the movie's time is spent exploring their cold new world.
The house they live in, a masterpiece of production design by Henri Schmitt, has automatic gates, doors, windows, kitchen appliances and a hideous aluminum fountain made from a fish that spouts water from its mouth. The fish is turned on for company, left off for family, tradesmen and relatives. Two round upstairs windows look like eyeballs, especially when the backlit heads of M. and Mme. Arpel function as their pupils. The garden has a winding path to the door, allowing a wicked shot where two women effusively greet each other while the path has them walking in opposite directions. When Mme. Arpel decides her brother should meet a neighbor for possible matrimony, there is a garden party of agonizing bourgeois awkwardness during which chairs and tables are shuffled clumsily, a climbing vine comes to a bad end, and the underground tube to the fish is punctured.
Things like that happen around Hulot. Arpel, an executive in a plastic hose factory, gets him a job that leads to all sorts of difficulties, including mysterious footprints on the personnel director's desk, and hose that looks like frankfurters. The only person who seems to understand Hulot is his nephew Gerard, who treats life in the modernist house as a bore, and escapes to scamper about town with his prankster playmates. The family dog, a dachshund in a plaid overcoat, also sneaks out to run with the local strays.
"Mon Oncle" introduces us casually to a large cast of local characters, including a street-sweeper who is perpetually in conversation and always means to use his broom but never does, and a produce vendor whose scale is off because a flat tire causes his truck to tilt. There is a tender, subtle subplot involving Betty (Betty Schneider), the concierge's daughter, who offers Hulot sweets and conducts a little flirtation, and in a bittersweet closing scene, looks all grown up and almost inspires Hulot to make a romantic gesture--before, alas, her mother appears.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46gqZ6ZpGK6sMLInmSmp55ivK%2Bvy55kanFlbQ%3D%3D