MON ONCLE ANTOINE (Canada/1971)

This film directed by Claude Jutra has been chosen as the Best Canadian Film of All Time in three separate polls of Canadian critics and academics _the latest poll was conducted in 2004. Runners-up: Jesus de Montreal ('88), The Sweet Hereafter ('97), Goin' Down the Road ('70), Atanarjuat (2002). Mon Oncle Antoine was also the Grand Prize winner at the 1971 Chicago Film Festival.

It's a coming-of-age film about a 14 year-old orphan named Benoit who has lived for an unspecified amount of time with foster parents Cecile and Antoine. They run a general store in a mining village in Quebec in the late 1940s. The store is a gathering place for the community, particularly during the Christmas holidays. Mon Oncle Antoine is both a sprawling portrait of village life and an intimate account of how Benoit gains awareness of the plights of the adults around him and confronts his own mortality. Benoit accompanies his "uncle" Antoine, who doubles as village undertaker, to retrieve the body of a teenage boy who has died in a remote homestead. The hazardous trip on sled provides a formative experience to the boy.

Screenwriter Clement Petron writes from personal experience, with a perceptive eye for the foibles and heartbreaks of the villagers. Jutra's apprenticeship with the likes of Jean Rouch in France is evident in the documentary feel of several scenes. He also plays the pivotal role of Cecile's lover. Jutra made several interesting films in his 25 year directorial career but most are very hard to find. He developed early-onset Alzheimer's and commited suicide by drowning, like the protagonist of his film A Tout Prende. He was only 56 years old.