Mon Oncle

Director: Jacques Tati

1958 / 117min / DCP

Tati’s alter-ego, the long-limbed, umbrella-clutching, accident-prone Monsieur Hulot, just doesn’t get along with the modern world—not with the Villa Arpel, his brother-in-law’s pretentious, uninvitingly geometric house that bristles with a host of hazardous conveniences, nor with the plastic hose factory where he takes a job—but he’s adored by his 9-year-old nephew, Gérard, for whom his uncle is the antidote to the sterility of life with his parents. A marvel of timing and comic choreography by Tati—the direct descendant of Chaplin—who exceeds the master in his hysterical use of sound effects.