Mon Oncle (1958)

This is how I saw my first Jacques Tati movie. I'd heard about them, read a few reviews on the web and I was intrigued. I made a mental tick next to his name and when, in March 2004, Sally and I found ourselves at the Virgin Megastore on Boulevarde Poissonieres in Paris, I went hunting for them. I found M. Hulot's Holiday, or more correctly Les Vacances de M. Hulot. In spite of locating this gem of French cinema, the selection at Virgin was disappointing. Too much Hollywood, not enough Studio Canal or Pathe.

Zip-pan back to Australia where I work my way through the carry-on bag of DVDs we had acquired in our pan-planetary travels and I watched M. Hulot for the first time. It took me about twenty minutes to slip into the relaxed pace and whimsical headspace of Tati's comedy but after that, I was hooked.

Two days ago, I got a copy of Mon Oncle. This time I was ready for Hulot from the word go and this film is currently on my list of all time favourites.

It starts with a scene of small, scampering dogs roaming the streets of an old vilage in France, rummaging in garbage bins, playing in the gutters, pissing on park benches and in general, having a great time. The dogs serve an important purpose. Their instinctive randomness and curiosity highlight the futuristic sterility of the town nearby where M. Hulot's sister, brother-in-law (Mr and Mrs Arpel) and nephew Gerard live. One of the roaming dogs, an adventurous dachshund, belongs to the family. Instinctively shunning the modern town, it chooses to wander with the mutts in the old town where a horse and cart pick up junk, the street sweeper always seems to have a neat pile of litter in front of him and the bistro looks like the kind of place anyone would love to spend a few hours playing pool and sipping cognac.

Hulot is unemployed and aimless, living in a garret apartment from which he seems content to wander the town, pick up Gerard from the hideously sterile school he attends and observe the World. His sister (Adrienne Servantie) decides that Hulot should work in the plastic-tubing factory that her husband manages. This of course doesn't work and Hulot manages to manufacture pipes that look like sausage links. She's also trying to matchmake him with her neighbour, a Hedda Hopper look-alike who has nothing in common with Hulot. A garden party (held in the Arpels' outrageously silly, hideous, minimalist, human hostile garden) turns into disaster as Hulot innocently punctures the pipeline to the fountain, amputates a climbing vine and looks more bemused than usual. One of Tati's keen observations here is that the attendees of the party interact more genuinely when things go wrong than they had before Hulot arrived.

But the plot isn't essential. The heart of this movie is the interaction between Hulot and the World. The whimsical village life where a potential punch-up evolves into a friendly ride on the junk cart after a sojourn in the cafe, the way the little dogs always seem to know where Hulot is and are drawn to him as a kindred soul and most central, how Gerard understands Hulot the way that adults rarely can are the aspects that turn the mundane into the magical. Charming isn't a word I use often, but I keep thinking of it when I remember this film. This is a film to treasure.

(Originally posted Wednesday, December 15, 2004)

Les Yeux Sans Visage (1959)

(Eyes Without A Face)

Directed by Georges Franjou.


A woman is seen driving down a country road at night. In the back seat of her small car is an apparently sleeping figure in an overcoat and hat who slumps at every turn of the car. The driver is nervous. Her name is Louise and she is played by Alida Valli, an Italian actress with wonderfully expressive eyes (a quality both female leads in this film have). She pulls the car up at the bank of the Seine and drags the female body from the car and dumps it into the river. The face of the body is not seen.

Professor Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) is first seen giving a lecture on skin transplantation techniques. He’s an expert on the subject and talks about how intense radiation can be used to overcome tissue rejection problems. After the lecture, the police call him in. A body has been found in the river and it may be Génessier’s missing daughter Christiane. At the morgue, he identifies the body as Christiane and as he walks back to his Citroen, he meets a man who also has come to see if the body is his own daughter. Génessier is gruffly and abstractedly polite to the man.

At Christiane’s funeral in a fog-shrouded country cemetery, Génessier is accompanied by Louise. Obviously the corpse isn't Christiane. Back at his country manor, he parks his car while the barking of unseen dogs is heard. Upstairs in the house is Christiane, a doll-like waif figure (Edith Scob) wearing a full face mask through which only her expressive eyes can be seen.

Her father is kidnapping girls and transplanting their faces onto Christiane, whose own face was hideously burned in a car accident caused by Génessier, who was driving. A combination of guilt, pride and obsession have turned him into the maddest of mad scientists.

Louise now heads out to befriend an attractive student whom she offers accommodation at Génessier’s mansion. The professor chloroforms the girl and in scenes that are still shocking today, straps her to an operating table, peels the face from her and transplants it to Christiane. The graft seems successful at first, raising Christiane’s hopes of a normal life. But over dinner one night, the professor notices an unusual flush to her cheeks. In a series of clinical photographs shown with Génessier’s voice-over, the necrotisation of Christiane's face is documented. This device works shockingly well in a way that would be difficult to emulate with more modern special effects. It’s a good demonstration that less can be more.

Les Yeux Sans Visage is a unique film. In spite of the gory, ugly aspects of it, it is also a film of odd tenderness and unexpected beauty, particularly in the final scene. Christiane is a striking and memorable character. Her fragility is emphasized by the brittle mask she wears, but the main engine of it is the superb acting of Edith Scob. She doesn’t seem walk, but to float as if not entirely a part of the World, which she is not because of her imprisonment by her father. The poignancy of her situation is enhanced by the fact that she phones her former fiance, who thinks she is dead, just to hear his voice, then silently hangs up when he answers.


Franjou’s film is a combination of horror, perceptive characterization, tragedy and visual beauty. It’s one of those movies that is a one-off. Nothing has come close to the mood of this one. Later films, particularly Jess Franco’s The Awful Dr Orloff (Gritos En La Noche), owe a lot to it, but this is definitely one to see for its’ gothic, agonizing atmosphere and the impressive way that Edith Scob conveys the pain, loneliness and isolation of Christiane predominately through body language.
Umbrella Entertainment have released this one in Australia which includes some extras, including an interview with Franjou.