A film, like a book, has in some way succeeded if it gets you worked up about the fate and the actions of the characters - even (or especially) if you suspect that director and author have sympathies contrary to your own. For my money, with 'Jules et Jim' Francois Truffaut and Henri-Pierre Roché did both.
In Roché's 1953 novel Jim and Jules' friendship is a delight. A celebration of male companionship, at one point separated by war but meant always to be in some way together. We don't see many portrayals of such relationships now. Truffaut's 1961 film is true to this, their togetherness charming and real. This is a doomed idyll.
In neither version is Catherine a femme fatale or ogress. No lazy caricature or misogynist's cipher. Thoroughly human, but more difficult to reach than either of the men. Their love for her, prompted by her likeness to a certain Greek sculpture, is inexplicable and sometimes you have to take the author's word. Her indulgences and unhappiness, the acting out, the infantile revenges - yes, it's freedom, and oh how they lived, but look at the cost: Jules and Jim forever parted and two lives cut short, decades of experience and enjoyment that will never take place.
But, and I think Truffaut manages this better in his film than Roché in his book, there's no blame to be attributed and grudgingly I'd agree: the actions of the characters couldn't be reined in without constricting their vitality, and no-one can be called to account for living.
Perhaps it's a French thing, this impetuous emotion-to-action, the respect for passion. Possibly also you have to be able to relate to Catherine, and some people can. But I'd be wary of getting into a car with them.
'Jules et Jim', in a restored (if dark) print, is on at the NFT all the way through June, and given the weather there are no excuses for not seeing it.
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