By Francis Colo

Spring finally arrived in Cape-Santé, Quebec after months of freezing weather. The ice over the surface of St. Lawrence River was melting and something unexpected washed up on the banks. It was a man’s body, one which you could not identify from his face because god knows how long it had been soaking underneath the ice. The mystery was solved when a piece of paper was found inside the man’s belt. It said, “I am Claude Jutra.”
Fifteen years prior to his death, filmmaker Claude Jutra made Mon Oncle Antoine, a coming-of-age tale set in a small mining town that opened with little commercial fanfare but was praised as the best Canadian film of 1971. Over the last three decades, critics at the Toronto International Film Festival have consistently voted Mon Oncle Antoine as the best Canadian film ever made. Despite the praises from up north, Jutra and his film is still relatively unknown outside Canada.
The history of Quebec plays an important role in the setting of Mon Oncle Antoine. The 1940s and 50s is known as The Great Darkness in Quebec’s history because of conservative premier Maurice Duplessis’ corruption and church-oriented policies. Many economic institutions, such as asbestos mines, were controlled by English capitalists in French-majority Quebec. In a subplot of the film, miner Jos leaves the asbestos mine out of frustration, only to find his chances are just as grim elsewhere. Later in the film, the English boss of the mine rides his sleigh around town and throws candies at houses with a disdainful look on his face, only to be greeted by indifference from the poor villagers. In an act of defiance, Benoit and his friend scare his horse to pull him away abruptly by throwing snowballs at him. The scene echoes the bitter sentiments of Francophone Quebec towards the Anglophone ruling class.
So what qualifies Mon Oncle Antoine as the best Canadian film ever made? U.S. critic Leonard dismissed it as “not bad, but nothing special.” It is true that the film is not an epic like Gone With The Wind, but its merit is built upon Jutra’s keen eye for the details of daily life. For the first half of the film, fifteen-year old Benoit quietly observes the adults while he helps out his uncle Antoine at his general store on Christmas Eve. He sees his aunt and uncle lovingly interact with each other, the patrons singing together and Uncle Antoine drinking shot after shot for any sort of occasion. Meanwhile, Benoit is confounded by his newfound interest in sex and love, as he deals with his attraction towards Carmen, the hired girl at the store. With plenty of experience working as documentary filmmakers, Jutra and his cinematographer Michel Brault give the film a very organic look that immerses the audience attention into the characters’ lives. Brault is also unique in his use of the zoom, a breakaway from conventional filmmaking.
The film reaches its climax as the story takes a dark turn after the first hour. The naive Benoit thinks it would be fun to ride the sleigh across town and help his jolly uncle with collecting a dead body. After a grueling ride in the snow, Benoit is quietly petrified by the sight of the corpse of the fifteen-year old boy. The proximity between him and the boy awakens the idea of mortality for Benoit, who has never thought of death in a personal way. The cold pale feet, the lifeless body and the unfit casket are all too close for comfort. He could have been in that boy’s place, too. And to make things scarier for him, people are not really what he thinks they are. (Spoiler alert) Uncle Antoine is not really a jolly confident fellow who likes to drink, but a bitter old man who drinks to numb himself. He also finds out Fernand, the store clerk who he trusts, sleeps with his aunt while they are away. Life is not so simple and innocent after all. Benoit’s painful lessons on life are all packed in one night.
Besides the love for his culture, Claude Jutra’s yearning for childhood is what ultimately makes Mon Oncle Antoine a heartfelt movie. The playful Jutra once bluffed his way to director Federico Fellini’s hotel room by pretending to be a television news crew. After finishing medical school at the age of 22 to please his mother, he continued his pursuit as a filmmaker with his short films and documentaries. In 1963, he won the Best Canadian Film award for his first non-documentary feature À tout prendre. After years of struggling to find financial support, Claude Jutra displayed many of his talents again by writing, directing, editing and playing the role of Fernand in Mon Oncle Antoine. The film also shows his uncanny ability to convey the joy and pain of growing up. Even without any knowledge of Quebec’s history, any audience could enjoy the poignant beauty of Mon Oncle Antoine.
Praises and awards for his films never catapulted Jutra’s career as a filmmaker. He continued to struggle with getting his films made and seen, and he often had to settle with television work and acting jobs. Sadly, Jutra’s memory started to decline in the early 1980s and he realized that he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, a painful secret that he never shared with anyone. He could not remember the lines for his acting roles, nor could he remember the scenes he shot mere hours earlier. In November 1986, he wrote a couple of notes to his friends about his “departure” and directions to feed his cats before he left his house, never to be seen alive again. Mon Oncle Antoine serves as the pinnacle of an artist’s career and remembrance of a perpetual child.
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