Category: 1950s

William Wyler | 1hr 58min

After Breakfast at Tiffany’s, this is the version of Audrey Hepburn that stands tall in the public consciousness – a young, fresh-faced actress who, while not yet entirely refined in her craft, exudes such natural magnetism that she can carry entire scenes solely with her reactions. This performance, paired with that of the handsomely confident Gregory Peck, makes for a breezy two hour hangout in the streets of Italy.
 
Aside from the clear acting talent on display, Roman Holiday is also all the more effective for its location shooting in the nation’s capital, with William Wyler clearly relishing every opportunity to frame his actors against bell towers, sculptures, cars, stairs, columns, and historical monuments. The seeping of Italian neorealism into American film culture is evident here as early as 1953, even if the product is more hybridised than directly imitative. It isn’t like the studio system of this era to step beyond its backlots and sound stages, but the extra effort pays off here in emphasising the emotional immediacy of the characters and their environment, thereby letting the plot take a backseat much like the films of neorealism.

The tension that underlies the narrative is twofold – firstly in the lie that Joe is maintaining to get a good news story out of the runaway Princess Ann, and secondly in Ann’s own concern about being pulled back into the restrictive royal lifestyle she has grown tired of. We get just enough of these complications recurring through the ensuing adventures that they are never forgotten, but they are not so present that they dominate the sheer joy and romance of the film.

The minimal exposition is especially notable, as all it takes is a few cutaways of Ann slipping her feet out of her heels and stretching during a formal engagement to understand her dissatisfaction. Likewise, the ten-minute finale which wraps up Roman Holiday resolves every single lingering emotional thread with nothing but a few looks and words between the two lovers at a public press conference. Though these words hold little significance on their own, they are brimming with the subtext of coded lovers language. You could mute this scene and understand everything purely through their expressions – Ann’s disappointment in realising the lie Joe has told, his shame at her discovery, her silent forgiveness, his gratitude for their lives crossing, and finally, a mutual, bittersweet understanding that they are set on different paths.
 
Most of all, Roman Holiday is proof that “sweet and charming” doesn’t necessarily mean “small and modest”. William Wyler is a director with an eye for deep focus imagery, and he puts it to good use here by turning Rome’s architecture and geography into a living, breathing environment, providing Ann and Joe the romantic, challenging adventure that both needed at this point in their lives, whether they knew it or not.

Roman Holiday is currently available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

William Wyler | 1hr 43min

It takes a special kind of artistic flair for a stage play to be brought to cinematic life without expanding its story too far beyond the confined walls of a single location, and William Wyler is more than up to the task in his adaptation of Detective Story. To focus the scope of this narrative even further, it remains restricted to the sequence of events that unfold over the course of one day, where multiple plot threads emerge within a single police station and drive our short-tempered protagonist to his absolute limits. As Detective Jim McLeod’s personal and professional worlds collide and the walls close in, Wyler’s deep focus staging of his cast brings layers of both visual and subtextual significance to the film.

His emphasis on this sizeable ensemble may be somewhat surprising given the concentrated character study he is conducting here, though it is through the intricate construction of this police station where petty thieves and felons alike face the consequences of their sins that we see the fuel for McLeod’s inner fire. As the son of a criminal himself, it is his mission to bring down the hammer of justice upon those who maliciously destroy the lives of others, making sworn enemies out of lawbreakers who continue to elude his grasp. It is quite ironic then that it is also in this environment that his own cruelty and anger surfaces, as he gets caught up in his stringent obedience to his own rigid moral system and loses focus of the bigger picture – a picture which Wyler is sure to draw out in intricate detail, effectively putting us at a distance from McLeod to assess his character from the perspectives of others.

And beyond this one man, there is indeed a rich world of characters out there that he is all too happy to divide into good people and villains. As separate conversations overlap in multifaceted scenes that evoke those chaotic ensembles which Robert Altman would perfect twenty years later, Wyler staggers his actors across layers of his frames, developing them simultaneously or otherwise fluidly shifting his camera from one corner of the office to another. In the background we often find a shoplifter sitting on her own, watching other stories develop in horror and taking them as moral warnings. When McLeod himself isn’t dominating our attention, he is similarly often relegated to these positions as a consistent presence among the other narrative strands, which bounce around and off each other in the foreground. Wyler also continues his remarkable depth of field in his consistent low angles, often emphasising the hands of his characters in close-up whether they be cuffed to a chair or threateningly clutching at another’s face further back in the frame.

With this handling of such a busy professional setting, one might almost hope that Wyler affords us some time to delve back into McLeod’s seemingly happy home life that we glimpsed at the start, and yet in this tight, cutting screenplay, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that even this comes back to bite us. As a man who takes each crime that falls within his purview as a personal insult, and who is at times even more passionate about seeking justice than the actual victims, the ultimate twist of fate is that his work actually does begin to edge into his private life in unexpected and horrific ways.

Such easy categorisations as good and bad become obsolete when loved ones get involved, and questions of potential compromise only further drive McLeod further into his stance of self-defensive moral purity, even as close friends and colleagues beg him to ease off. Though he abides by a strict code, he is not a man who possesses the ability to think situations through clearly, and so words that he throws out in fits of anger inevitably come back to haunt him as he sets in motion his own rotten downfall. At some point in Detective Story, this “cruel and vengeful man” may have been a redeemable figure, but in Kirk Douglas’ blazingly impassioned performance and Wyler’s magnificent direction, McLeod becomes an unsalvageable figure of stern resentment, encompassing those criminal qualities that he so loathes in the people he seeks to brings to justice.

Detective Story is available to stream on The Criterion Channel, and available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

Billy Wilder | 1hr 53min

Sabrina may not have the reputation of Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Roman Holiday, and yet there is a good argument that Billy Wilder’s first collaboration with Audrey Hepburn features the actress at her most nuanced. Here, she combines two roles she would be commonly associated with – the fresh-faced innocent and the stylish fashion icon – and grows up before our eyes in a gorgeous transformation, confidently inhabiting a new look which turns heads that previously went unturned. Even before this takes place though, Hepburn is a screen presence to behold, with Wilder soaking her face through close-ups as she watches a young William Holden from afar. Though Sabrina carries great loneliness she is still evidently immature, as an ill-thought-out suicide attempt over her unrequited puppy love reveals a naïve belief that there is nothing else out there in the world for her.

The two years she spends in Paris changes that quite drastically though. To David, her then-crush and now-suitor, she is an entirely new woman, bearing no resemblance to the one who left. To her father, she is still the young girl with no wider understanding of the world. To her, the truth is more complicated. She is still carrying insecurities that haunted her before, as we are reminded in the instrumental motifs of ‘Isn’t it Romantic’ recalling that night she had her heart broken while watching David flirt with another woman. But now she has lived and experienced more, and she finally sees her own great potential.

“You’re still reaching for the moon.”

“No, Father. The moon is reaching for me.”

Up against Hepburn, Holden is struggling in what is easily one of his lesser performances, hitting comedic beats that land quite clumsily in a film that is otherwise extraordinarily elegant. Faring better is Humphrey Bogart, playing David’s older brother, Linus, carrying a magnificently commanding presence even if he doesn’t run away with the movie like Hepburn. Both are the sons of a wealthy family of whom Sabrina’s father serves as a chauffeur, and yet as they develop romantic interests in her, the clearly defined class boundaries dividing them are challenged in complex ways, giving rise to a web of intricate relationships that Wilder relishes in his staging and luscious deep focus cinematography. Of all the romantic set pieces we witness here, by far the greatest is the indoor tennis court upon which the figures of all three leads stand out prominently, whether they are isolated in the wide, open space or caught in a moment of tender affection.

As much as we are drawn to Sabrina’s journey of independence, the callous duplicity of Linus also forms the basis of a compelling character who apparently lives to serve his family. In his efforts to ensure David doesn’t get distracted from a potential marriage that would be good for their business, he charms Sabrina with the intent to eventually send her off on a boat alone, and yet in the process of enacting this cruel plan, he incidentally falls for her. Like the hard, durable plastic he has obsessed over in his corporate ventures, it looks like no one is going to break him. And yet, ultimately, someone does.

“The man who doesn’t burn, doesn’t scorch, doesn’t melt suddenly throws a $20 million deal out the window.”

Essentially, Linus is a romantic pretending to be a practical businessman pretending to be a romantic. As he stands in a meeting room committing to the future of his company, Sabrina’s ship sails away in the background behind him, its whistle blowing like a final reminder of what he is losing. Before the rom-com trope of a man chasing down his lover in the airport, we had Bogart sailing after Hepburn on his boat, culminating in a romantic meeting of two movie stars that gorgeously ties off two parallel arcs – a man finding himself in love, and a woman finding herself beyond infatuation, realising that she has the entire world in her hands.

Sabrina is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

Billy Wilder | 1hr 55min

More than just being the name of a street in Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard is where stars fade away into the night, each one replaced the next morning by a younger, fresher luminary travelling along an identical trajectory. Norma Desmond is one such has-been who burned brightly in her youth, and yet in her old age (or at least, what Hollywood considers old) she has tumbled from the ranks of high society, her career opportunities drying up along with her youthful vitality. Though she is no longer a sex symbol, she tries to recapture that glamour in extravagant makeup and clothing, and frequently watches the old silent films she starred in, basking in her younger self’s charm and allure which has been lost over the years. No longer does she venture outside her colossal, Gothic mansion, cluttered with unsettling sculptures, archaic furniture, and framed photographs of her own likeness. Instead, she traps herself inside its dark, gloomy chambers, turning it into a tomb where unfulfilled dreams come to wither away and die.

And indeed, Billy Wilder recognises the full power in using this antiquated set as an eerie, hollow space that seems to radiate ethereality. Much like Charles Foster Kane’s mansion Xanadu, this great manor is an extension of Norma Desmond’s own hollow self-obsession that swallows her up. It is grandiose in its décor, and yet the upkeep is clearly lacking. Even when our protagonist, Joe Gillis, first arrives by pure happenstance, it carries the atmosphere of a haunted house, with voices calling out to him from inside as if he was always destined to arrive. Outside, he notes “the ghost of a tennis court” that clearly hasn’t been used in decades, and a drained pool containing nothing but debris and rats. During his stay, his presence injects some life into this dreary environment, as we see Norma visibly brighten and the unused pool fill back up with water. And yet for as long as she haunts this “grim sunset castle”, the stench of death and decay can’t be erased entirely, and somewhat fatalistically, that pool which Gillis restored marks the site of his own demise. This place is not just a tomb for Norma, but for all those who get caught up in her deathly aura.

That Wilder’s skill as a director has often been overshadowed by his remarkable flair for screenwriting should not be taken at all as a slight against the astounding filmmaking on display here. As much as Sunset Boulevard is a tour-de-force in mise-en-scène and noir lighting, the fact remains that its script is its greatest asset, and easily belongs among the greatest in film history. There is its incisive cutting right to the heart of America’s superficial movie industry, its snappy bounce from scene to scene in crisp, elegiac prose expressed through voiceover and dialogue, and of course, the nuanced construction of one of the most tragic cinematic characters in Norma Desmond, whose lines resound with both pride and misery of grandiose proportions.

“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

Though Gloria Swanson quite literally steals the spotlight of Sunset Boulevard with her elaborate performance of a crippled ego hiding behind delusions of grandeur, this is also a story of hubris for a man living his own quieter self-deception. Gillis is a struggling screenwriter who may or may not have the talent to actually make it big, and so just as Norma latches onto his youth as a path to a comeback, he hitches onto her as a doorway into the industry. The line that divides the two is far thinner than he would like to acknowledge, as he too thirsts after success and adoration from those around him, taking pride in Betty’s love for him over her boyfriend. If Norma is “sleepwalking along the giddy heights of a lost career”, then he is doing the same from the opposite direction, maintaining a contrived illusion that the key to fame can be found through reviving that which has already decayed.

And yet as all hope of manifesting these dreams plunge, such delusions only grow in magnitude, consuming these starry-eyed idealists in a magnificently surreal cocoon of falsehoods. Their fates have been written out from the start, as Joe’s voice from beyond the grave introduces his past self in third person like the two are separate people, and then emphasises the uncanniness of his destiny with a fantastically dreamlike shot looking up at his floating body from the bottom of Norma’s pool.

As for Norma Desmond herself, the performance of her own majesty was never going to break even under the most extreme pressures. In one brief moment of eminence, she has finally captured the attention of the press, public, and even Hollywood celebrities, the spotlight literally turned on her as she descends the steps of her manor for the last time. With a melodramatic monologue and a wide-eyed, theatrical advance towards us, the audience, she seems to become one with the camera, at which point the shot blurs until all definition is gone. The reason for her newfound infamy and its inevitably devastating consequences matter little. As far as she is concerned, she will forever live in this singular instant, her mind fully devoured by the same ostentatious vanity that Hollywood instils in all its most beloved, yet easily disposable stars.

Sunset Boulevard is available to stream on The Criterion Channel, and available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

Billy Wilder | 2hr

In turning his pen and camera to the incarceration of Americans in World War II German prison camps, Billy Wilder, the master of many genres, crafts a mystery, comedy, drama, and war film all at once, effortlessly drawing us into a narrative that is as gripping in its suspense as it is comical in its escapades. Purely in terms of subject matter, Stalag 17 may be his heaviest film yet, as life-and-death stakes are immediately established in the failed escape of two prisoners-of-war. Not long after, we start getting bleak establishing shots of the captured men gather in large, muddy courtyards, revealing the full scope of the camp in all its desolate misery.

But being one of the few screenwriters who may lay genuine claim to being the greatest in film history, such overwhelming despair is no great obstacle to Wilder’s efforts in drawing out the light humour of these men’s lives. Pranks, games, gambling, parties, dances, and holidays – anything they can do to make this place feel like home is something worth holding onto, even as they face real wartime horrors.

Though David Lean’s 1957 British war epic The Bridge on the River Kwai might be one of the first comparisons to leap to mind in its prison camp setting, there is also a cultural gap between them that is difficult to reconcile beyond the presence of William Holden. Instead, it is Robert Altman’s 1970 war comedy M*A*S*H that might bear more fruitful parallels, as although its setting is an American medical hospital in South Korea, the irreverence, humour, and professionalism of its surgeons are qualities shared by Stalag 17’s captives. Wilder’s work with such a large ensemble here is commendable, even Altman-esque in an era before Altman, as he carves out several distinct personalities by attaching key traits to them – Animal the mischief-maker, Price the chief of security, Bagradian the celebrity impressionist, Joey the ocarina player, and of course, Colonel von Scherbach, their Commandant who positions himself as a “good” Nazi even as he actively works to foil their covert plans.

Not everything here meshes together perfectly, as the weak voiceover that runs through this story offers nothing that we can’t gage from the dialogue, and it certainly doesn’t help that it is narrated by one of the least memorable characters, Cookie. It is rather Holden’s dark turn as J.J. Sefton that makes the biggest impact in this cast, as he sets himself apart from the other inmates in his guarded, cynical, and manipulative mannerisms. When suspicion is cast on him for being a mole feeding insider information to Von Scherbach, his quest to clear his name sees him set out to unmask the real traitor, promising to see this person get the comeuppance they deserve – and when he delivers this threat, we believe every word of it.

It is exceedingly common for screenwriters-turned-directors to let their dialogue do the heavy lifting, and yet Wilder is one of the few who does not fall prey to such temptations, as the tensions which emerge within this tight-knight community of American soldiers take on new significance in his deep focus compositions. The barracks themselves are a handsome rustic set which always seem to feature some sort of obstruction hanging from the ceiling, whether they be draped clothing left to dry or Christmas lights bringing a touch of festivity. Most significantly, those few prisoners who wind up emotionally ostracised are isolated in Wilder’s thoughtful staging, at times through his layering of bodies across the frame, or otherwise divided by barriers in the mise-en-scéne – most notably a hanging lightbulb, which itself takes on extra significance in the communication between the mole and the Colonel.

And that isn’t the end of Wilder’s stylistic bravado either. Though he does on occasion indulge in the odd wide shot of the entire cast, such cramped conditions don’t always allow for such luxuries, and so it is in his tracking camera that he allows us to consider this community of prisoners as a whole without cutting. When suspicion is cast upon Sefton, the silence of their mistrustful gazes is drawn out as Wilder pans his camera across their faces, each one staring right down the barrel of the camera. But just as these tracking shots can be used to distance us, they are also just as effective at inviting us into their brotherhood, as during a Christmas celebration we are left to wander through this makeshift dance floor where these lonely men slowly rock against each other. In scenes like these, Wilder recognises the need to step away from the despair and hysteria of the prison camp, and let some quiet hopefulness bleed through. Above all else, Stalag 17 is a tender ode to the persistence of the human spirit in the worst conditions, whether that manifests as irreverent joy or a cosy, quiet peace.

Stalag 17 is currently available to stream on The Criterion Channel or Tubi TV, and available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

Jacques Tati | 1hr 27min

The social satire of Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday is a little gentler than his later films, but that matters little – Jacques Tati is not a cynical intellectual at heart, but rather an artist with an adoration for the simpler things in life. If some cultural or political force comes along to threaten that innocence, he may bite back with good humour, but his focus never strays from the sweet, childlike love of beaches, dress-up parties, ice cream, fire crackers, and those long summer vacations where you briefly become best friends with total strangers. Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday is essentially the cinematic equivalent of a postcard, preserving a nostalgic moment in time where the rest of the world ceases to matter for a few short weeks.

Of course, at the centre of it all is Tati’s titular comic buffoon, Mr Hulot, who himself gets caught up in a series of slapstick hijinks. In carrying on the tradition of silent comedies, Tati maintains the importance of framing in his visual gags just as much as his physical performance, playing with our perspective by obstructing shots with doorways, furniture, and buildings all through this beachside and hotel setting. With a simple cut from one angle to another, a man who we suspect of peeping into a sauna is revealed to simply be taking a photo of his family, though without this secondary context Hulot takes it on himself to give the stranger a good kick on the backside.

Hulot is not a passive holidaymaker, as much of the time the situations he finds himself are set in motion by his own naïve actions, but once he is caught in a gag there is no escape until its final punchline hits. His own clumsiness leads to him accidentally snapping a boat in half in one sequence, but when he takes it out in the water and both sides fold up to consume him, he is forced into an awkward position beyond his control. As he tries to get out, it snaps its way towards the shore, and around him sunbathers run away shouting “Shark!” Of course, anyone with a good set of eyes can tell that it is not, in fact, any type of sea creature, but to apply such logic to Tati’s world is redundant. Later, a tyre covered in leaves is mistaken for a funeral wreath, and the mouth of a taxidermy fox rug improbably opens wide to latch onto Hulot’s spurs. Every object in this world is reduced to a vague impression and shape, with their actual functions overwritten by whatever comic purpose Tati decides might throw this tall, lurching mime off course. It all makes total sense when filtered through the mind of a child, and who is Mr Hulot if not an overgrown kid?

For all of his light teasing of Hulot, Tati holds the awkward man in great esteem, especially when compared to all the other vacationers around him. Among the other adults staying in his hotel are fat capitalists and self-absorbed intellectuals, and most of the dialogue we hear in this film comes from the amorphous background noise of their dull conversations. On a themed night, Hulot makes his way down to the lounge area dressed as a pirate, only to discover everyone else in ordinary clothing, playing cards, and listening to a political report over the radio, unable to switch their minds off to enjoy their holiday. For a brief moment, we feel a little pang of sadness that this evening will go to waste for Hulot. But just as he is about to give up hope, a young blonde woman and a boy also turn up in costumes, and suddenly a small family forms between them. Together, they dance to the music, so wrapped up in the moment that they are oblivious to the heads they’re turning.

The attention Hulot garners from others isn’t always so positive, as in a recurring visual gag, Tati sits his camera at a wide shot of the hotel while lights flick on one by one, disturbed by whatever commotion the bumbling man has accidentally created. Tati himself is as kinetic as ever in his performance, bolting away from stray fire crackers in one scene of utter chaos, but even in quieter moments, he maintains a magnetic presence in his lurching long steps and slight lean forward, naturally becoming the first thing our eyes are drawn to in any shot he is present.

In a lazy, swinging theme of saxophones, pianos, and vibraphones, Hulot is encased in a gentle, unwinding motif, recalling an era that doesn’t so much belong to a specific point in history as it does to a period that can only ever exist in our memories, where moments of joy are associated with sweet nostalgia and humiliating accidents are simply turned into funny stories. In the very final shot, when Hulot and all the other vacationers have left, Tati freezes on an image of the empty beach, and at the same moment, the first bit of colour appears in this black-and-white film – a red postage stamp, stuck in the upper right corner. With this tiny, elegant touch, Tati effectively condenses everything that we have watched into a single snapshot in time, tying off this cinematic postcard as a charming ode to our reminiscences of long-gone, but deeply-treasured childhood vacations.

Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday is currently available to stream on SBS on Demand and the Criterion Channel, and available to rent or buy on iTunes.

Jacques Tati | 1hr 57min

Villa Arpel looks far more like a modern art instalment than a welcoming home, but nevertheless, it is in this stylish, blockish structure where Monsieur and Madame Arpel plant their roots. Everything, from its clinical, square-cut angles to the white path curved perfectly across their manicured garden, carries an air of high-class posturing, but the design alone isn’t enough for Jacques Tati in his send up of post-war France’s consumerist culture. On top of the comical pretence of it all, the efforts of high-flyers to make the world more efficient through automated contraptions and sleek designs has only made it clunkier. Something as simple as a rocking garden chair makes for a nice piece of décor, but its height, tiny backrest, and imbalanced rocker rails makes for a hilariously awkward experience trying to sit on it.

This “ultra-modern” home is the setting for much of Mon Oncle, even though our main character, the non-verbal oddball Monsieur Hulot, lives a rather different life to Madame Arpel, his sister. His rundown apartment complex might almost look like a ramshackle Dr Seuss cartoon in its winding passages and angles, but just like everything else in this world, it is still entirely made up of geometric blocks. When Hulot first enters this architectural oddity, we sit in a long shot as he passes by windows, giving a glimpse into the convoluted path he takes which winds through seemingly every room until he reaches his flat at the top. Living in this old-fashioned, decrepit building isn’t any easier or harder than living in a fashionable, automated home, but it at least doesn’t hide its messiness behind any polished, deceitful designs. Furthermore, the windows in both residences are always being used to visually sever individual body parts from the inhabitants, whether it be a low opening focusing on Hulot’s feet, or two adjacent, eye-like portholes in Villa Arpel making its owners’ heads look like pupils. It is a material culture that these characters dwell in, and by cutting them up into segments Tati frames them as objects, dehumanised by the very constructions they live inside.

This perfectionistic approach to blocking actors like models in meticulously arranged dioramas would go on to inspire such modern auteurs as Wes Anderson and Roy Andersson, but in terms of those who impacted Tati, Charlie Chaplin must get a great deal of credit. It isn’t very often one can point to Chaplin’s influence as a director (his influence as an actor is an entirely different matter), but Tati is a true acolyte of the silent comedian, as he similarly constructs his film out of vignettes and running gags, all of which formally build on the larger satire at play.
 
Chaplin’s comedy Modern Times looms largest of all, particularly as Monsieur Hulot finds himself in a factory job he just isn’t cut out for. Though he is tasked with managing some sort of long, red tube that keeps pumping out of an engine at an unyielding pace, what exact purpose it serves remains purposely vague. As Hulot loses control, the tube starts warping, and despite there being nothing logical or meaningful about this absurd production process to begin with, he quickly becomes the laughing stock of the workplace.

The precision with which Tati blocks visual gags doesn’t just reveal itself in these large set pieces, but even in movements as small as the way a group of party guests pick up all the furniture in a garden party to get away from a water leak, carry it around winding paths, stepping-stones, and platforms, only to arrive back at the same spot that they originally left. Along the way as they move down a small flight of steps, the table tilts, and a jug sitting on it pours itself into a cup in what may be the smoothest motion we see from any inanimate device in this film. How hilariously ironic too – any high-tech contraption whipped up to serve the same purpose wouldn’t do half as good a job as this accidental occurrence.

Through his performance as Monsieur Hulot himself, Tati reveals that his understanding of slapstick comedy goes beyond his direction, as he turns himself into a comic object buffeted about by overly complicated paths and mechanisms. There is just as much of Buster Keaton’s deadpan in his manner as there is of Chaplin’s scrappy Tramp, though the figure that he strikes is entirely unique. The crushed hat which slopes down over his face, the long pipe hanging out of his mouth, the tan trench coat and pants that sit high above his striped socks – unlike his well-to-do sister and her bullish husband, he does not dress to impress for garden parties or white-collar offices, but he rather opts for an outfit that seems both thrown together and completely distinctive. Looming tall over everyone else while springing about on his long legs, he bears the physicality of an overgrown child out of step with his surroundings. Perhaps this is partly why his nephew, Gérard, is so drawn to him over his real father. While Monsieur Arpel brings home a toy locomotive manufactured by his company, Hulot gifts him a dangling, paper clown, and it is clear which one he prefers.

How curious it is that this film is titled Mon Oncle (My Uncle) as if Gérard is telling us this tale, even though we spend many scenes without him. To narrow our focus though, this title is most tenderly captured in the simple motif of Gérard grabbing onto his uncle’s hand while he is distracted, followed by the two sharing a tender moment of affection. In these moments, we share Gérard’s innocent perspective, and then carry that appreciation of Hulot through the rest of the film, defining him by his status as a funny, endearing paternal figure. While the world is rattling along a jagged path of arbitrary progress, the actual future of the world, the children, are left behind. In the end the only hope that this world isn’t as superficial, self-centred, or tangled as it seems is this playful, eccentric man, who finds himself just as lost among the madness as them, yet always finds joy in its strange curiosities.

Mon Oncle is available to stream on the Criterion Channel, and available to rent or buy on iTunes.