If "Rosa La Rose " was for me a disappointment ,"Le Café Des Jules" is probably ,along ""La Machine" l'Etrangleur" and " En Haut Des Marches" ,one of Paul Vecchiali 's greatest achievements ;based on a play, a running time barely exceeding one hour ,a stunning economy of means ,and the actors ,generally not very known , are extremely efficient ,if only for their spontaneity .
All the action takes place in a cafe (check the title) ,but the camera hunts the characters into a corner ,revealing their bad instincts .This is "in camera " drama,where they use the depth of field ,recalling sometimes Wyler's "Detective story "in which what happened in the background might be more important.
"Jules " means boyfriend ,husband,with a slight pejorative nuance ;here it means the average French with all his frustrations, his latent racism ,his basic instincts ;first acquaintance shows jovial men, exchanging crude jokes and enjoying a drink ;then one of them begins to talk politics and the first cracks appear: the cafe owner is almost compared to a politician : "you own your bistro,and it's also a restaurant and a driving-school":pluralism indeed!Note how macho the driving instructor can be :"I've got a bunch of dogs,some of whom will never get their license ! Enter David and Christiane (Brigitte Rouan) ,two "different " people.David is wearing a suit and a tie,par excellence the bourgeois appearance ;he is a lingerie rep ,a shy sensitive young man;Christiane is a secretary ,who left the provinces for a while for Paris,and is back in her hometown.These two characters are chatting while the other customers are playing billiards...and drinking more and more .
Under the influence of alcohol,all the repressed hatred surfaces :when David goes to the toilet ,they open his bag and make fun of his lingerie (a rep? a fag who enjoys using female underwear,more like!)David is humiliated ,,bullied,treated like dirt,absurd revenge of the blue collars against the white ones ;when Christiane tries to intervene ,the barflies' bestiality knows no bounds anymore and she is raped.
When the morning comes, life is back to normal again ,as though nothing happened .Tracking out on the street ,a tuneful music is heard before a semi spoken cast and credits ,a la Sacha Guitry ,ends a nerve- racking movie.
This is the kind of movie which grows on you ,not exactly the " Comédie A La Française" style;Vecchiali is too subtle a director to argue or to judge .Don't expect an entertaining movie,and brace yourself!
