My American Uncle

The film follows three people from different backgrounds, a factory manager, an actress, and an executive, whose ambitions and disappointments cross over the years. Their stories are interrupted by the biologist Henri Laborit, who explains the science of their behaviour to camera.

Using Laborit's ideas about the inhibition of action, the film suggests how unconscious drives govern whether people fight, flee, or submit under stress. It is an inventive bridge between behavioural science and everyday conflict for clinical discussion. It won the Grand Prix at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival, and draws on the scientific writings of Henri Laborit, who appears in the film.