Set in the blustery, frozen winter landscape of northern Quebec in the 1940s, this coming-of-age tale that is as much about life in a small rural mining town as it is about the travails of its teenage protagonist, which is a good thing since, even by the early 1970s, audiences had already grown accustomed to such adolescent nostalgia. Yet, even if it leans heavily on some well-worn clichés, Claude Jutra directs the film with a grace and sensitivity (and a few too many zooms) that emphasizes both the specificities of the time and place and the well-recognized markers of adolescence. Like Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, a film that Jutra is clearly emulating, Mon oncle Antoine ends on an ambiguous freeze-frame that suggests the film’s youthful protagonist has stepped into a new phase of life, one from which he can never return. (DVD)