我的美国舅舅

虽然电影非常nb，但还是得说这只是尚存一点儿良知的左派布尔乔亚想要自救，但失败之后自怜自艾的一部片，这种电影内核很像人类之子以及刺客聂隐娘，黎民需要看到的是电影当中角色身份的断裂性和弥合性，以及布尔乔亚群体内部和贵族内部的矛盾和争斗，阿伦雷乃没有学安人贵族、安人布尔乔亚、左派布尔乔亚以及共产布尔乔亚那样把矛盾给简化和刻意强化(往他们有利的方向进行叙事），这一点还算难能可贵，片中四个主要角色，阿伦雷乃很巧妙地结合了生物实验(小白鼠实验模仿的就是布尔乔亚在未夺贵族权之前会刻意营造出社会可以进行一定程度的不满情绪宣泄，只要不影响到整个布尔乔亚意识形态输出就可以，例如布尔乔亚的自由民主精神，但只要完成公民布尔乔亚化后，隔板就会马上放下，原来想来回左右横跳的左派布尔乔亚小白鼠只能被电死，甚至为了获得生存权，不惜杀害原来阵营的小白鼠左派布尔乔亚）以及社会景观(结尾70年代嬉皮布尔乔亚运动后留下来的满目疮痍，象征布尔乔亚社会繁茂的苍天大树下的砖瓦，蓝绿色已经混合在一起，蓝绿左右布尔乔亚党已经不分你我，大家都是好兄弟）来加以呈现他们是如何在贵族社会转换到布尔乔亚社会后完成了身份转换以及自身的阶级固化，男一是贵族向右派大布尔乔亚身份转换(反抗贵族家庭，崇尚自由恋爱），女一完成了三次转换，一次是从工人左派布尔乔亚转换到共产小资布尔乔亚，共产小资布尔乔亚(无脑黑维希政府）变成嬉皮左派小布尔乔亚，嬉皮左派小布尔乔亚转换成如今的新自由主义白左布尔乔亚，而男二从农场主贵族(反抗农场主家庭，瞧不上他内心当中所谓压抑，勾心斗角的家庭）转换成公司白领右派布尔乔亚(本分做事），但因为缺乏技术和创新头脑，于是就被新自由主义布尔乔亚和背后的财阀所抛弃(喉咙无法发声，失去话语权)，男三是从贵族转换成生物学家布尔乔亚，这个人物也很关键，因为他是相当于从科学和生物的角度出发，来为人类的某些行为辩解，维护的对象恰恰是片中的这些布尔乔亚，等于说布尔乔亚为了不让其他阶层的人看出来这种断裂性，故意以人性和心理学的角度来为其涂脂抹粉，为他们做出这些行为找到一个合理的解释和借口，这种处理方式还是挺有新意的。通过这个片子，我也能理解去年在马里昂巴德里面看不懂的叙事逻辑，左派布尔乔亚想要从右派布尔乔亚手中夺到贵妇(贵族支持，类似维斯康蒂这种共产贵族因为自己身份的高贵所以瞧不起右派布尔乔亚，因此希望和共产布尔乔亚合作打击已经夺权的右派布尔乔亚)，但每次都失败了(贵妇最终还是投靠原来的丈夫，影射戴高乐掌权)，不过由于当时贵族内部的残存势力，使得左派布尔乔亚幻想，一部分贵族会因为自身的自由受到限制，而继续循环整个游戏，回到原点，这种想法其实有点儿傻，本片倒还好，没有这种非常无聊和幼稚的叙事，落脚点也是在自由精神被布尔乔亚发扬和玷污之间存在的矛盾性，值得一看的片子。

9-10月香港电影节发烧友展feature的导演之二，亚伦·雷奈。法语英字，大概只懂了百分之八十，其中最容易理解是神经生物学家的发言，啊，心理学没白学。在Henri Laborit贯穿全片的絮叨教学和实验演示背后（消费、逃避、挣扎和压抑），我理解只有一个精髓：人的本性是互相倾轧。

开头的混剪对我来说实在是可以但没必要，三线叙事可以符合人类直觉一点吗？美国舅舅没有出现，私以为是在捏他《我的叔叔于勒》？除此之外还是有价值的一部电影，有名有姓的电影史上没其他人这样拍了吧……至少刻画的三个人的境遇都很立体。还挺喜欢结尾镜头从远处不断切近一栋楼那么高的壁画，壁画是一棵森林里的树，每一块砖就像植物的细胞，正如个体是社会的一枚齿轮。

Le Gall（简单来说，此人不顾妻儿出轨女演员“追求爱情”，妻子不来找他的麻烦，找第三者装病危恳求让丈夫回归，女演员忍痛割爱，妻子成为胜利者姿态耀武扬威，几年后女演员终于发现被骗来崩溃地来找他复合，他）最后说“你很好，她（我妻子）也很好，她当时（我出轨的时候）该有多难受啊！”真是又离谱又真实（简称典中典），佩服一些男人！

影片讲述了出生于20世纪20年代、30年代和40年代的三个中产阶级角色如何应付犹如迷宫般的各种压力的故事。

本片主角让·勒·加尔出生在巴黎，在海上小岛和祖父一起长大，祖父去世后他会带着历任女人前往岛上约会，这是一种回忆行为。在同学的帮助下他当上了新闻部部长，顺利结婚生子。

让·妮娜在巴黎贫穷地区的工人家庭中长大，立志想成为演员，但父母希望她老老实实的上班过平淡生活，于是她离家出走，最终如愿以偿当上话剧演员。

哈格努出生于农场主家庭，他不愿呆在乡下管理农场于是通过努力从底层一步一步的当上了纺织厂技术总监，成为办公室白领。并与未婚妻阿莱特结婚生子。

影片通过三人的自述结合影像将三人从出生到成年工作后的人生轨迹快速进行总结。大量的文本和快速跳跃的剪辑让观影者快速获取信息。

其中岛是生命的起源，太阳传说是条件反射的起源，消费行为是非条件反射的起源，三个起源分别构成家庭，心理意识，社会体系，互利共生而又相互拮抗，人世的五味杂陈油然而生。“美国梦”阴影从父亲到儿子，取代了两代人对理想主义的定义，从潜意识上俘获了他们，进而影响到家庭观念，工作方式以及自身与社会的关系。美国舅舅，将三个起源联系起来。当人们对某一种物质有了固定的定义之后，这个物质就成为了一个整体，而我们施加上去的定义就成了物质的性质，正如家庭，心理意识，社会，但是当我们将它们拆开，重新审视这些碎片时，会表现得十分反感，正如结局家庭回归成砖瓦，深埋着的潜意识爆发，社会中的各种优劣趋势……都如同画在墙上的森林，浏览时是美感，观察时却是一片片污垢。

按照雷乃自己的说法，他是要以生物学的角度来解释芸芸众生日复一日的苍白岁月。他否定了激情，而所谓的感情，只是人类排遣寂寞的拙劣表达。好在，雷乃并不刻薄，他用他精密的电影语言，不动声色的剪辑，呈现人类无法根除的终极困境。而雷乃自己的态度却是一派朦胧，他惟一的态度可能就是，“我知道现实本身，却不知道该如何面对这个现实。”

盛佳蓝光标注

MY AMERICAN UNCLE is Resnais’ groundbreaking cinematic reification of the nexuses of evolutionary psychology, propounded by French neurologist and philosopher Henri Laborit’s (1914-95), who plays himself in the film and intermittently expounds his theory with crying lucidity and eloquence aided by an assortment of optimal visual cues (lab mice and the experiments, prominently). “The being’s only reason for being is being.” a tenet puts rationality to the fore in dissecting the pedestrian lives of the triad of our human-formed guinea pigs: René Ragueneau (Depardieu), Janine Garnier (Garcia) and Jean Le Gall (Pierre).

Deconstructing their discrete childhood upbringing and adolescent rebellions in rapid-fire, incoherent montages, often alternating with shots of sundry critters in conjunction with an explanatory voiceover, might stump some viewers in the off, but Resnais’ stream-of-consciousness modus operandi pays great dividends when one gets the general picture of the narrative, meanwhile being inculcating by Laborit’s fascinating theory on human behaviorism - chiefly, the three evolved reactions in the face of stressful environments: fight, flight and inhibition.

Hailed from disparate backgrounds, Jean is born on an island and is fed off on an orthodox bourgeois value to thrive in the society, married with his childhood sweetheart Arlette (Borgeaud), and sinks his teeth into politics and writing; René is raised in a farmland with strict Catholic doctrines, who grows up and rebels against the rural livelihood, working his way to the executive post in a textile firm, married with Thérèse (Dubois); then Janine, from a proletariat household, renounces her ideology and aspires to an acting career on the stage. Their trifurcated trajectories intersect when Jean and Janine become an item, causing fraction in his family whereas René’s career path meets with some unforeseen setback that also puts a pernicious strain on his family and even his own life.

Behavioral contradictions abound in the three main characters (whose actions are signposted by black-and-white movie footage of three French screen idols: Jean Marais, Jean Gabin and Danielle Darrieux): a free-spirited Janine will naively take a fabricated lie on trust without ever questioning the fabricator’s motive; René’s thickset build doesn’t chime in with his suicidal predisposition and Jean, the high-flying politician endures the status quo despite it is all constructed upon a tremendous lie which is at the expense of the love of his life. All that reflects Laborit’s theory of the aforementioned three-step coping mechanisms.

Among the main cast, Depardieu eloquently smothers René’s pent-up frustration, trepidation and indignation inwardly and Pierre seems to error on the side of his hangdog countenance which is counter-productive towards Jean’s cowardly evasion, indeed, it is Garcia who holds court marvelously, her gelid facade poignantly flakes away when Janine has to get the shaft for being what? Overwhelmed by her intuited compassion of another woman’s dying wish, a scathing revelation imparted with appealing deception by an exceptionally mutable Borgeaud.

Finally, a lingering question, who is the titular American uncle? Alain Resnais’ cerebral, analytical character study doesn’t give audience a concrete answer (all three mention an American uncle at one point), to this reviewer’s lights, it is subsumed into an extrinsic vector that magnifies the three protagonists’ personal scrapes, or signifies an alternative of evasion, of a Sisyphean effort that one might not see its light during one’s lifetime, the star-spangled land might just as well be a castle in the sky, like Zambeaux (Arditi) said: “America doesn’t exist. I should know. I lived there.”, also perhaps alludes to “The American Forest” mural by Alan Sonfist, materializes in the telescoped, lingering ending shots.

In short, MY AMERICAN UNCLE is a kosher food for thought secures for revisits and contemplation for its sublime philosophy and sophistication (dialogue and visual flourishes), like as not, mankind’s entire societal behavioral pattern is acutely recapitulated through Resnais and Laborit’s fine-tooth comb.

referential entries: Resnais’ PROVIDENCE (1977, 7.1/10); LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1961, 8.3/10), HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (1959, 8.1/10).