On Screen!: Mon Oncle Antoine (2006)

• 63%
• 2006
• Documentary
• Tristan Orchard

Claude Jutra was already one of Canada's notable directors when he made his best-loved work, a poignant portrait of growing up in a small Quebec mining town in the 1940s. His film is the story of Benoît, a young orphan who spends Christmas Eve with his undertaker uncle, Antoine, on a sleigh-bound journey through a bitter snowstorm to retrieve the body of a local boy. Drawing heavily from the French new wave filmmakers, Jutra's affecting slice-of-life tale is a bittersweet look at Quebec before the Quiet Revolution that focuses almost entirely on Benoît's nostalgic and sometimes absurd view of the townspeople. Though Jutra passed away in 1986, the film's history is traced by famed cinematographer Michel Brault, composer 'Jean Cousineau' and star Monique Mercure. Two residents of Black Lake, where the film was shot, are also interviewed alongside critics including Martin Knelman, Piers Handling and Andre Loiselle, who express the lasting impact of this undeniable classic of French-Canadian cinema.