Stylistically, this fine movie has that timeless look, that dignity and force that are the signs of the greatest achievements. This has to be the highest class of masterpiecesthose who do not belong especially to their decade, or, less artificially, to their epoch. This comes, I guess, from an equilibrium and force of the inspiration, that lifts them above the standard of their time. Their belonging to a trend or some tendency of their epoch may be discovered; it may even be extremely obvious; it is nonetheless of little significance. They do not have the limitations current in their time, the striking flaws, etc.;and when they have any, those are the unavoidable limitations, turned into virtues. They are not outside their epoch; they are above it. This is true about Jeux
;it is also true about another film of the directorhis thriller he made with Delon and Ronet. Jeux
is not in any way especially '50s; and it is even less "so '50s". This quality means freshness; its regrettable absence means the fading. Fading is not lack of strength; morally, the strength may still be intact. Fading is the lack of this supreme equilibrium that some of the greatest directors reach only once in a lifetime, and that Jeux
's author reached at least twice. There are no obsolete,so '50s touches to be excused or savored. There is nothing but the presence of the purest art.
This level of artistic purity has been reached in the realistic cinema; but it was also reached in the surrealist and fantasist one. It is not a question of content. One might be tempted to associate it with the perennial realism, with those means towards realism, finally discovered. Yet very fanciful forms of cinema benefited from its presence also.
The substance of Jeux
is very simple, very deep and thrilling, and straightforward put. One can see from its first frames that the director set himself up for something and that he has the clearest idea of what he is going to achieve. For those interested in films, not knowing his movie is simply knowing less or little about the cinema. His achievement here is so supreme that one feels the cinema's life passes through here. The author has chosen to offer not interesting hints at his personality, like other more renowned directors do, but a coherent and meaningful work. The interest in the director's person is completely secondary to the understanding of his movieslike some classic dramatists of his own country, what he offers is not allusions and hints at himself but a meaningful result. The preliminary phases, his road are unimportant .It is only the movie that counts. Yet from the commonsense coherence of his best films one guesses that the man was somebody, that he had an inner life. In the great cinema, his is one of the less narcissists. He offers not himself and his changing perishable exterior substance, but his skillsand,in this case, a masterpiece. Sadly, some have little understanding of this; yet, I felt as in front of those spherical literary or plastic masterpieces that have to offer but themselvesa complete and opened world.
Jeux
is a movie of supreme beauty,and one of the great works of art of its century.There are surprisingly many movies that we may call true works of artmovies by Fellini, Welles, Antonioni, Renoir,etc.;Jeux
is one of them.
The supreme appropriateness of the aesthetic terms makes Jeux
one of those movies that truly rise to the artistic altitude of the very good literature. Some of our predecessors asked themselves if the cinema will succeed in rising to match the literary achievements. Jeux
is one of those not so few movies that made it.It has a perfect equilibrium of terms, a supremely appropriate syntax, a welcome minimalism and dignity. One might express the director's approach as being a no-nonsense one. The subject is completely and wholly mastered.
Chronologically caught between Renoir (and the so-called French school, the old classics) and Truffaut (with the New Wave), somewhat caught between Bresson and Clouzot and more imposing personalities and people that spoke about their program and intentions, this director is not unanimously recognized as one of the significant authors. Yet he was one. Of course, he was a craftsman as well; he took the Hitchcockian thriller beyond Hitchcock's personal intentions, into the genre's perfection, giving it an authoritative expression with his Full Sun. Here,in Jeux
,working on a small canvas, he allied energy with delicacy and gave birth to an exquisite wonder. An original precision and intelligence make Jeux
his most astonishing achievement. Jeux
depicts a small and humble worldseized in its connection with the towering categories of lifeall, expressed with endless tact and lucidity. As authorial attitude towards the cinema, the director is one of the representatives of the healthiest common sense. He opened the cinema to this narrative and 'filmic common sensewhich, needless to say, is one of the rarest things.
His movies openthey open ceaselessly and imperturbably.
The first thing noticed in Jeux
is the pure, supreme, simple and commonsense beauty. A very tactful person as an artist, RC set himself to amaze the viewers not by his means, but by his achievements. His best films are things achieved, accomplished. They are things of beauty, and of a deep and thoughtful common-sense. Some disavowed his art as being craftsmanship. Yet they never reached his level of virile, manful sobriety in efficiently treating a great subject. Let us admit it, his movies are not, as scripts, made of nothing; he has chosen big subjects, sensational and intriguing and ambiguous and exciting thingsthe pet cemetery and Ripley and all. He knew to give them an eerie dimension without depriving them in the least of the above-mentioned common sense.
Jeux
is one of the seven wonders of the French cinema.