Review of Jules and Jim (1962) by James C — 03 May 2008

It's hard to know where I stand on this. The editing and cinematography is superb; as a piece of narrative filmmaking its undoubtedly a masterly achievement. Yet there's something about the supposedly "charming" characters that is deeply off-putting - instead of coming across as "loveable" free-spirits, they seem rather a self-indulgent trio of insular-looking bourgeois.

I take the film as a story about failure, finally - and perhaps as an uncanny premonition of the decades which followed, where sexual revolution lead to heartbreak, destruction, selfishness, death and one-parent families.