Review of Jules and Jim (1962) by Nick A — 26 Apr 2010

Jules and Jim find each other -- and subsequently a strong friendship -- in a small coffee shop in 1912 France. Jules (Oskar Werner) is an Austrian writer whose generosity and tendencies for the serene have kept women at an earnest length, while Jim (Henri Serre), also a writer, seems to attract attention with his eager confidence and stately French charm. The two men share curiosities for such things as literature, strange art, and eccentric living -- and when Jules finds Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), a whimsical (and rather rickety) girl who bares a strong resemblance to a beautiful stone sculpture both he and Jim admire, all of the friends' interests seem to radiate through her. As the relationship between Jules and Catherine grows, so does the friendship between Jim and Catherine -- she even tells them that she never knew happiness until she knew them. But as the years pass, her claim proves to have been either naive infatuation or coincidental irony, for she becomes miserable and irresolute with and about her desires, and her desolation spreads to Jules and Jim and eventually ends in calamity.

Francois Truffaut is known as one of the great directors of French New Wave -- a brand of French filmmaking that rejected classical cinematic methods and ideas in favor of more unorthodox, gallant ones -- but he was more a student and great architect of cinematic speak and relationships, and "Jules and Jim" is his finest example of each. Not only is it visually audacious, but also the sound of its words is as smooth and lovely as that of Shakespeare's (a common reference in the film), and discernibly more provocative and sensual than that of other great films spoken in Truffaut's native tongue ("Breathless", "The Bay of Angels", "Day for Night"). And the love triangle (easily film history's most elegiac menage a trios) that binds the three stars together is calculated and expertly crafted -- by both Truffaut and his actors. We care for (at least two of) these characters, and though the decisions they make may range from innocent to detestable, their happiness, confusion, and anguish are too palpable to brush away or simply ignore. And above all else, that's what makes "Jules and Jim" not only Truffaut's highest directorial achievement, but also one of the best films of the New Wave movement, and of the 1960s and all decades -- because of how effectively it captures the beauty of life in spite of life's dull and morbid times. It's a movie about love that has and should continue to be celebrated as an example of passion and possibility.