我的美国舅舅

存在是人存在的唯一原因，或者说是维持自己的机体结构而且必须存活着，否则便不存在。

植物的存活不需要移动，它们直接从土壤中汲取营养。借助太阳能，它们能把土壤中的物质转化变成自己的生命所需。

动物，包括人类，唯有通过消费植物已转化的太阳能才能存活。这需要他们有移动的能力。他们被迫改变位置。

四处移动需要神经系统的支持，神经系统使动作变为可能，但也要环境许可。只为一个原因：生存，如果行动颇有成效，便会的得到愉悦的官感。

生命体中有一种驱动力，促使它们保持生物平衡，保持生命结构以及存活。这种驱动力有四种表现形式：一是消费行为，也是最简单的，它是以吃喝、繁殖等最基本的生理需求为基础；二是逃避行为；三是斗争行为；四是抑制行为。

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).