One Cure for Depression Might Just Be Jacques Tati
(This article was previously published on my old website and has been slightly modified.)
I usually don’t get this personal in my movie reviews, and certainly not this early in one, but I struggle with depression. That’s important for you to know, not particularly about me, but in describing how Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle (1958) affected me in a way I did not anticipate.
For several years, I have been slowly working through Roger Ebert’s Great Movies, a list of 362 films Ebert considered the finest he reviewed during his tenure as movie critic at the Chicago Sun-Times. Of those 362 films, I’ve watched 312, leaving 50 to go. Attempting to combat the depression I was going through a few days ago, I decided the only film that might help lift me out of my funk was Mon Oncle, part of the Criterion Tati box set from several years ago. I had previously watched Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (1953) and Playtime (1967) twice each, discussing both with our library’s Great Movies discussion group. I anticipated a lifting of my spirits with Mon Oncle.
The opening scene with several stray dogs roaming the early morning streets of a French city succeeded in brightening my mood momentarily. Having seen the other two films mentioned before, I knew that Tati wasn’t simply showing us a pack of dogs wreaking havoc (mostly innocuous havoc, to be sure). I felt sure he had something more in mind.
As soon as the film’s set piece, the ultra-modern house (designed by Henri Schmitt), makes its first appearance, I was instantly reminded of Playtime, a film whose scope and critique of modern technology cover far more territory than Mon Oncle. I knew the schtick.
The ultramodern house and yard are filled with gadgets, push-button “time-saving” devices (such as automatic gates, doors, windows, and a garage door), and a gauche aluminum fountain in the shape of a fish that spouts unnatural blue-colored water from its mouth. We know that Mr. Hulot will not only visit this house, but also that he will more or less destroy it.
The house is the home of Monsieur (Jean-Pierre Zola) and Madame Arpel (Adrienne Servantie) and their young son Gérard (Alain Bécourt). Once they enter the picture, it takes the audience about 30 seconds to recognize that the Arpels are as empty as their spacious house. (You can’t justify calling it a “home.”) The place is as impersonal as the Arpels themselves, and young Gérard, when he’s not playing with the young ruffians in the more run-down parts of town, finds one of life’s few pleasures in spending time with his mother’s brother, Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati).
Before there was Chauncey Gardiner (Peter Sellers in Being There), Forrest Gump, or any other cinematic character who seems innocent and almost too good for this world, there was Monsieur Hulot. Hulot is unemployed (at least during most of the film) and unpretentious without a care in the world. He takes things as they come, and in a world filled with wonder, Hulot wants nothing more than to leisurely explore it as if time stood still for his every journey of curiosity. He is childlike, the perfect companion for Gérard.
SPOILERS
At his wife’s insistence, Monsieur Arpel hires Hulot to work in his factory, which manufactures plastic hoses. If you’ve seen any of Tati’s films, you can imagine the comic possibilities, and the director does not disappoint. Yet Arpel is disappointed, relocating his brother-in-law to a distant factory where he will be out of his hair and far away from influencing Gérard.
This dismissal of Hulot made me angry, which momentarily took me out of my depression. It’s bad enough that Arpel is jealous of Hulot, but to deny his son the one person he loves by removing him is hateful and selfish. And it’s not like Arpel will suddenly become closer to his son. Instead, he’ll acquire more gadgets and continue giving Gérard meaningless presents.
But Hulot takes it all in stride. To quote from Roger Ebert’s review of the film:
I love Monsieur Hulot. I love him because he wishes no harm, causes no harm, sees (whenever possible) no harm. He does not forgive his trespassers because he does not feel trespassed against; in the face of rudeness, he nods politely, tries to look interested and stays out of the way. In an emergency, he does what he can, stepping on the leak in the lawn so that the fish can continue to spout. What he would like to do, I think, is to set out each morning and walk here and there, tipping his hat, tapping his pipe, grateful for those amusements that come his way. If his heart breaks even a little when he says goodbye to the landlady's daughter, he doesn't let us know.
The day after I watched the film, I began to realize a few things that helped with my depression: Hulot doesn’t need the praise of others. He is not a people pleaser and suffers no sense of doubt, lack of self-worth, or feelings of not measuring up to everyone else. He has no self-doubt, no ideas that he’s “never good enough.” When he can, he tries to assist those who need it. Sometimes those efforts result in comic mayhem, but he’s trying to help.
Hulot is also about relationships, although sometimes he appears to be a reluctant participant. Perhaps, like many of us, he’s been burned a few times, yet he doesn’t keep a list of wrongs done against him. He keeps on and doesn’t have meltdowns, throw tantrums, or yell that his rights have been violated. He moves forward.
Remember that everyone’s going through a hard time. Maybe we should take the focus off ourselves and try to make someone else’s day easier.
Is everyone better off at the end of Mon Oncle than they were at the beginning? Possibly, I don’t know. But the dogs return, doing what dogs do. Kids will be kids. The Arpels will continue to be the Arpels. And Mr. Hulot will continue to be Mr. Hulot. Maybe no one in the film has learned anything by the time it’s over, but I have. In many ways, Mon Oncle could be the most important movie I’ve seen this year.
If you suffer from depression, what are the movies that pull you through and give you hope? Thanks in advance for sharing, and thanks for reading.