Widely hailed as one of the finest in the World of Cinema, Jules et Jim is perhaps Francois Truffaut's most heartfelt and deepest ode to Women and Love, in a way few have ever been able to express themselves. Jules and Jim is an exuberant and poignant meditation on freedom, loyalty, and the fortitude of love.
The cinema centers and hovers around the female protagonist Catherine (brilliantly portrayed by the beautiful Jeanne Moreau). She's at times playful, at times insecure, beautifully sure of herself another moment, unforgiving and vindictive in another and has the most amazing beautiful eyes (resembling a Greek staue), in which Jules and Jim remain trapped for the rest of their lives.
The cinema centers and hovers around the female protagonist Catherine (brilliantly portrayed by the beautiful Jeanne Moreau). She's at times playful, at times insecure, beautifully sure of herself another moment, unforgiving and vindictive in another and has the most amazing beautiful eyes (resembling a Greek staue), in which Jules and Jim remain trapped for the rest of their lives.
Very briefly, Jules and Jim share an amazing friendship, but incidentally both fall for the beautiful Catherine (can't blame them actually :-)), but Jules manages to bowl over Catherine with his freshness, generosity and innocence. The movie is about the atypical love between the characters, their weaknesses, strengths and Catherine's yearning for total-loyalty.
The depth, quiet-aggression, love and finality of the character of Catherine is sensed even in the earlier sequences of the movie where Jules is shown narrating a personal incident when he was party to a discussion where women were humiliated, Catherine resents this and enquires whether Jules protested it or not. Jules replies in the negative, and to this Catherine jumps over the bridge into the river below - as a mark of protest and total rejection of his inaction!
Such a notion of total-freedom, dignity, belief in completeness, and rejection of cowardice has a totally radical feel about it in the thought process and mindset, which is probably a reflection of the revolutionary times of 60's France when Truffaut made this stunner. This sequence is beautifully conceived, characterised and captured on reel.
Throughout the movie, the eccentricities and subtle-yet-extreme sensibilities of the character of Catherine is on full display and actually reduces the two male-characters to mere side-kicks. It actually may have been apt to name the movie 'Catherine' and not what it's called, simply because it's only about her and nobody else!
Jim harbours a secret fond-feeling for Catherine, but does'nt tell her until late in the movie. As it turns out, Catherine reciprocates Jim's feelings, and both decide to get married. Catherine had realised that Jules was too soft a guy and may never be able to satisfy her intellectual-romantic thirst. Being still married to Jules, she pursues and has many lovers in an apparent effort to satiate her depth.
In one such revelation-scene of the character of Catherine, she informs Jim, that on the eve of her marriage to Jules, her mother-in-law had misbehaved with her, and Jules had'nt reacted at all. She had felt extremely humiliated at the incident and in order to get even, she had slept with an ex-lover to settle scores so that she could start her marriage with a clean slate!
In an another earlier incident, Jules had admitted to Jim that he was unable to 'keep' Catherine to himself,
because of his own character-flaws, his weakness and softness. When Jules protests this, Jim simply pleads and says "can't you see, she's a Princess?" slam-banging the audience with the very-high esteem with which Jules regards Catherine. Of both Jules and Jim, it's Jules who understands and appreciates Catherine's sense of freedom and love although he knows he's himself desperately inadequate to fulfill it. As it later turns out, he intentionally offers Jim permission to marry Catherine, since all he wants is to remain close to Her.
Jim promises to return to Jules and Catherine, but dilly-dallies his return, since he's still in love with his mistress and is indecisive about Catherine. Now are perhaps some of and the only 'human' shades to the character of Catherine, where she's shown fretting over, and constantly asking Jules "Do you think Jim Loves Me?".
They all meet in Paris and Truffaut provides a stunning climax to this fantastic bit of cinematic-thought. Catherine invites Jules and Jim for a ride in her new car, and after asking Jules to wait for her and see her ride, she drives Jim over a broken bridge and into the river, ultimately killing both of them!
Jules and Jim remains an audacious attempt by this brave pioneer of the French New Wave of Cinema to explain and illustrate the finer, deeper and perhaps slightly-darker aspects of human relationships, specifically Love.
* a snippet: In Jeanette Winterson's novel, Written on the Body, the narrator is discussing French films. "They pack more action into their arty films than the Americans manage in a dozen Clint Eastwoods. Jules et Jim is an action movie." - source 'Wikipedia'.
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