Mon Oncle on a Free Afternoon

"Mon Oncle (My Uncle)" is on TCM right now. The power is down at the museum and the afternoon is free. It seems fitting that when the electricity is out and business is no longer possible, Mon Oncle should be on TV. In the movie Monsieur Hulot lives in a strictly pre-modern Paris, but likes to visit his nephew Gerard, who lives in a fully modern and mechanized suburb. Monsieur Hulot bumbles around a world that has a button for every simple action and directional arrows for every possible track. It is a comedy like life is a comedy, where things can never always go according to plan no matter how fully scripted or technologically enabled they might be. There is a charming soundtrack, a single theme on the piano and accordion, that wraps up the old and new Paris in the same lightheartedness. In fact the contrast isn't so much old vs. new Paris as it is children (and small dogs) vs. adults, with the blundering Monsieur Hulot as the go-between. It reminds me of the French children book series Petit Nicholas. Monsieur Hulot has trouble navigating the modern world like the child has trouble navigating adult society, and they are united in their total lack of concern about it. Instead, the movie says, these are just the pratfalls and disconnections that make life what it is. No need to resent anybody.