45. Jules Et Jim; movie review

 

JULES ET JIM

Cert 12A

106 mins

BBFC advice: Contains discrimination, moderate bad language, sex references

It was set around the time of the First World War but Jules Et Jim has much more in common with the daring 1960s during which it was made.

The is one of the French New Wave classics of François Truffaut - a movie which has a sense of impish fun as well as impending doom.

It opens in 1912 and alights upon the burgeoning friendship of two young writers, Jules (Oskar Werner) - a shy, thoughtful Austrian - and Jim (Henri Serre) - a confident Frenchman who is a hit with the ladies.

The pair both fall for the beautiful, gregarious and opinionated Catherine, played with wonderful panache by Jeanne Moreau.

Truffaut evokes the atmosphere of the middle classes in pre-First World War Paris with great detail while  delicately building the personalities of his key players.

Out of the blue, scenes from the war emerge when Jules and Jim are on opposite sides and dread coming into direct combat.

The largest chunk of the movie is set post-war when Catherine has married Jules only to be made unhappy by the constraints of wedlock.

This is where I have a bit of a beef with Truffaut - there is literally no sense of the impact of the war on Jim, Jules or Catherine or, indeed, on wider society.

That should not detract from the performances

It was an early milestone for Moreau who went on to be, in the eyes of Orson Welles, "the greatest actress in the world."

Her representation of Catherine as a shallow, hedonistic beauty is one of the great cinema roles.

She is complemented splendidly by Werner, as the writer who is desperate for pleasure but is always struggling to find it and Serre as a man who seems so self-assured until knocked permanently out of his stride by Catherine.

Jules Et Jim feels like a film which deserves to be watched with a fine wine or whisky. 

Reasons to watch: A Truffaut classic

Reasons to avoid: Some will find it too whimsical

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 8.5/10

Did you know? Jeanne Moreau had to jump into a river because her stunt double turned up drunk. Moreau then had to spend 2 days ill in bed. 

The final word. François Truffaut: "Jules Et Jim is a novel about love in telegraphic style, written by a poet who has forced himself to forget his culture and to string thoughts and words together in a way a laconic, down-to-earth peasant would do."

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