JULES ET JIM (1962) *** The first half of the film is like a well-thrown rock skipping across a sacred marble floor: great clatter and apparent import and impressive momentum but no possibility of attaining any depth anywhere. When Francois Truffaut slows things down to let us get a look, I think I liked the first half best. It's all done in a manner that even a Baptist librarian would concede to being "reasonably tasteful," and no one is going to be shocked by the plot line these days, but the psychic focus is going to be considered somewhere close to mildly revolting, absolutely compelling, or pretty much boring, depending on your perspective. I don't believe that it's anywhere near the director's intent, but the result is a film that I can't help having appropriately and elaborately mixed feelings about. The poetic narrative is beautiful and full of gravitas and indicators, but the action could only be the stuff of barnyard legend in a region with particularly dull barns. Georges Delerue's score is excellent all around, and absolutely perfect in several scenes. I'll never forget how shocked I was the first time that I ever heard his music outside of cinema, and realized how spare it is. He may be the greatest ever at wedding music to film, but it's not an achievement on the level of creating music invoking the totality of the passions independent of visual reference. There's nothing either wonderful or worthy of criticism in the acting, but Truffaut shoots the film in a manner conveying a sense of profound meaning and absolute urgency. The problem isn't a lack of realism, but of magnitude. Jeanne Moreau approaches the world with artistic sensibilities and some genuine insight, but it doesn't strike me as nearly enough to captivate anyone for any extended length of time. She's an entropical impressionist of a character, and the film can only manifest itself in terms of random pathological passion that might have had some meaning if projected in some other direction. So maybe it's a film about luck.
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