My American Uncle [1980] [DVD]

I first saw this film at a foreign film festival when I was in college. It made a lasting impression on me, and when I ran across it while browsing through Amazon movies, I knew I wanted to add it to my collection..

Amazon continues to advertise this disc as playable in all regions. After receiving the same PAL format in two different orders they have updated the format to show PAL instead of NTSC. Don't order this copy if you live in the United States, unless you have access to a PAL machine

I couldn't help but feel, as a subtext this film explores White people's obsessions with Blacks. Perhaps they should be afraid of them. They will certainly never win a struggle for dominance with them.This is a great film, even without being, perhaps, at least at times, subtly creepy, and being quite so at the end. The late Roger Ebert noted that it is a fine film in itself, outside of a psychology professor who speaks directly to the audience, and the scenes from old films that occasionally mirror the action of the modern actors onscreen. These cut-ins certainly make the film more interesting, and more educational, perhaps even more poignant. Were those scenes taken from old movies, or were modern actors being filmed in an old black and white and perhaps silent film style? I would guess these were real films from another age, although, in at least one cut-in, it looks like an actor in the film appears in the old reel?There was an odd point towards the end of the film, where the politician's mistress, or the mistress he rejects, appears in a position of power, seeming to be the boss of the textile managers, manager. It came quite suddenly and this wasn't explained. It did provide (her being passed over in favor of the original wife) an explanation for her sympathy towards the textile manager. It may have been some kind of female-guilt, placed into the movie. That's something I'm not sure I've ever noticed before, living in the USA, a fictional program promoting female-guilt.I think this film subtly delves into politics. The filmmakers seem to suggest that 'free trade' and the compromises of 'the high-tech global economy' are harmful to people. It is at least within the realm of possibility there is also criticism being cast upon the larger reality of industrialization.Personally, I feel this is a great film, even if it does become somewhat exploitative towards the end. Even the subtitles work. They almost make the film seem interactive.

This film is a masterpiece, Mon oncle d'Amerique, Alain Renais directed a movie faithful to the scientist's work, the use of archive footage in the middle of the movie brings it a level of warmth that makes up for some of the coolness in the other parts of the film. Henri Laborit uses three people to discuss theories of survival, competition, rewards and anxiety. Rene is a manager of textiles who faces corporate downsizing, Janine an actress having an affair, and Jean who is a writer and politician.It's perfect and cannot compare to other movies in the genre, it is parlayed into narrative episodes and odes where the chorus, in this case psychologist Laborit, explains the meaning of the episodes, 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 plan on using this in a class to showcase psychology alongside language development.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. 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".It's impossible to compare to other movies of this genre, it really is a masterpiece and will hold the attention. Recommend.Aryan Somers

DVD worked

Un capolavoroNon facile all'inozio, ma una volta che inizi a vederlo ti catturaGenialeEbbe una nomination all'oscar per la miglior sceneggiatura originale.

This film, DVD in my case, seems to divide opinion. Its quality is fine and subtitles are in English (no need to change settings on the main menu).For me, some French drama can seem lightweight, even trite and one can view one, two or all three of these, unrelated domestic dramas as such, depending on your point of view. I found my mind wandering at times, which is never a good sign.The beginning, with its scientific points about behavioural patterns and habits in animals, from single cell organisms up to us humans initially seemed interesting but later, as these referred to specific scenes by juxtaposing them within the film, just added to the rather jarring narrative. They weren't done in an obvious Woody Allen, high comedic manner, which might have helped.Though I personally felt them not too distracting, black and white snippets from earlier French classics popped up, to echo the thoughts or actions of the actors. I noticed several snippets from Marcel Carne's 1939 classic Le Jour se Leve, for instance.Also, lessening its grip on our attention is its length - just over two hours. And, as to who, or what is the American Uncle, well, it's in there, somewhere!

Good

great