Jean de la Lune (1931) - A creaky but charming French relic

If you love early French talkies and can tolerate a hero who is pathologically naive, Jean de la Lune is a weirdly charming 90 minutes. But if you get annoyed by characters who refuse to see what's right in front of their face, this will probably make you want to throw your shoe at the screen. 👡

The plot is simple, almost too simple. Jean is this sweet, dreamy florist who marries Marceline, a woman who basically flirts with every breathing man in Paris.

The crazy thing is, her brother Clo-Clo—played by the legendary Michel Simon—actually feels bad for Jean and takes his side. Michel Simon is easily the best thing here, slouching around and looking like a rumpled unmade bed.

There is a couple of scenes where Jean is just talking about flowers while his wife is clearly thinking about some other guy, and the camera just stays on his face. It goes on for so long it almost becomes a comedy, even though it's supposed to be sad.

I kept thinking of older silent dramas like A Man's Past where the heartbreak feels heavy and real. Here, it’s more like a light breeze that occasionally knocks over a vase.

The sound quality is pretty rough, which is typical for 1931. Sometimes you hear this loud hiss in the background that sounds like someone is frying bacon in the next room.

And the music! It just cuts out randomly. One second a violin is screeching, and the next, dead silence.

I love how Michel Simon uses his hands. He has these giant, expressive hands that seem to have a mind of their own.

At one point, he’s trying to explain to his sister why she’s being awful, and he just sort of waves his arms like he's trying to direct traffic. It's brilliant.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Jean de la Lune (1931) through its definitive frames.

Suzet Maïs plays Marceline with this weird, glassy stare. You never really know if she’s evil or just incredibly bored.

The movie gets noticeably better when Clo-Clo is on screen, and much slower when it's just the married couple arguing in their apartment.

That apartment set looks so fragile. I swear you can see a wall wobble slightly when someone closes a door too hard.

It reminds me of those cheap sets in The Peacock Fan, where you're constantly worried a background actor is going to knock over a pillar.

But there’s a strange sweetness to it all. Jean's absolute refusal to believe his wife is cheating on him is almost beautiful, in a tragic, stupid sort of way.

He’s like a puppy that keeps bringing back a stick even after you've thrown it into a lake.

If you’re expecting a fast-paced comedy, this isn't it. It's a slow, slightly creaky relic that survives purely on the charm of its cast.

Especially Simon. I could watch him eat soup for two hours and probably not get bored.

Anyway, it’s worth a look if you’re a film history nerd. Just don't expect a masterpiece.

A few weird things I noticed:

• The background hiss that sounds like frying bacon.
• That one door that almost knocks the wall down when it closes.
• Michel Simon's incredibly baggy trousers. Truly a marvel of tailoring.