Jules and Jim

Jules and Jim

Jules and Jim is a movie that left me in confusion. I don’t quite know how to interpret it, and maybe that was part of the point. Sometimes I felt like it was misogynistic and sexist and other times I felt like they were all equally big train wrecks and looked like pathetic. When it first started out, knowing only the little I did on the movie, I figured it would be a love triangle where they were all in love with one another. They made it out to seem like Jules and Jim had interest in one another and had mistresses that came in and out of their lives until Catharine came along.

As the story began to develop and they kept coming back to one another everything began to blur. It was hard to keep Jules and Jim straight and even sometimes the third lover Catharine had. I think sometimes Truaffaut took this and other elements to the extreme over dramatic end of the spectrum to show just how ridiculous this seemed to be. The question of monogamy and the conventional relationship was valid in this movie. It brought up good points about monogamy and how some people can get bored. Catharine was just the extreame nutcase, which I guess if you were ultraconservative, could lead people to believe that multiple relationships are wrong, and everyone gets hurt in them. I think Jules was also just as sad and pathetic for wanting to have Jim be with her just so he can have her around. He had already lost her and was just putting himself in more pain just to have someone to look at.

I think the ending was twisted but kind of poetic in a way. After she died Jules was finally released. The only way he would ever be free would be if she were completely gone for good. Truaffaut even emphasizes this by playing upbeat happy music as Jules walks away on his own. What I found odd was that he was descending down the graveyard instead of moving toward the horizon. Maybe he was still descending into his own personal hell, even though she’s gone he’s never really free.