Review of Jules and Jim (1962) by Sergio R — 31 Dec 2007

Anchoring a story on audience identification is always a risky proposition, and never more so than when the audience is asked to fall in love with one or more of the characters. Fortunately, the rate of success is relatively high - possibly because of the way we are wired - so storytellers keep coming back to this approach.

It has, of course, the added advantage of making the end result objectively unimpeachable: if a member of the audience fails to identify, there can be no doubt about which side the problem lies. All of this to say that I am therefore incapable of objectively reviewing "Jules et Jim", because to me Jeanne Moreau's Catherine holds the same attraction as a wailing baby at a box office queue, or perhaps a loose spring in my mattress.

This being the case, I am alas unable to find the charm in the chaos she brings to the lives of two impeccably unremarkable friends. Given that the whole film is supposed to be a hymn to the disruptive force of love (Moreau's symbolism-laden yet still beautiful rendition of "Le Tourbillon" being one of the very few moments when I did not wish to slap her and call her "salope"), it is indeed very unfortunate that I could no more fall in love with Catherine than I could spend ten minutes with Jennifer Jason Leigh's unbearable Mrs Parker.

(Surely, for Dorothy Parker to have made her reputation as a wit, people would need to be able to understand her when she spoke?) I will give the film a decent rating, however, because I am fully aware that if I had succumbed to Catherine I would adore the movie as well, and also because the intensity of my hatred for her speaks of excellent acting excellently directed - otherwise, I'd have been indifferent.

And finally, because Truffaut made this movie with such passion that I can't help being touched by some of it, however misguided I might think it was (much in the same way I can love St Paul's Cathedral whilst detesting what it stands for).