Built around physician/philosopher Henri Laborit's ideas on evolutionary biology, the film follows three subjects from childhood - Jean (Roger Pierre) a writer from a privileged background, Jannine (Nicole Garcia), an actress from a proletariat household and René (Gerard Depardieu), a famer's son/struggling everyman. Using lab rats as an example, Laborit lays out how people avoid painful situations by moving, and if there is no escape, psychosomatic symptoms develop. And in defensive action, people turn violent against each other. But the film is much more than that. Resnais slightly interweaves these 3 lives without turning them into lab rats. Their melodramatic stories are rendered sympathetically and their problems relatable. The film is not cynical in any way, except for the notion of that mythic 'American uncle' who'd solve all our problems but never actually shows up.
Resnais counters Laborit's deterministic view with poignant montage sequences, constant cutting back to childhood memories and old movie clips featuring the heroes of our protagonists. The beauty of Mon Oncle d'Amerique is that it leaves me with more questions than answers. Are we all prisoners of our biological origins, that if one brick from our building blocks is removed, we are bound to crumble? Can our good memories trump our childhood traumas? Are we capable of leaping over our biological makeup of self preservation and think of the others? Beautifully constructed, playful and thoroughly thought provoking, Mon Oncle d'Amerique is one of my new favorites.
