Cousin Jules

Cousin Jules is one of those rare experiences that’s rooted in the past yet feels very much of the moment. On top of that, it’s timeless.

Rescued from decay after the director's 2011 death and looking radiant in a 2K restoration, this quiet gem is a time capsule whose potential audience may be small, but will be transported.

It only seems plotless. Momentous things happen, one of them tele­graphed in a single heartbreaking shot. The sense of time and place is so intense that Jules’ way of life seems to be disappearing even as we watch him.

Yet even as the timelessness of the human activity on display seduces with its serenity, it evokes in modern viewers a definite impatience with the impracticality of traditional rites and rhythms, perhaps only enjoyable in 90-minute doses.

For 91 minutes, the pleasure of the Guiteauxes’ company is ours. We are ultimately the richer for it.

As director Dominique Benicheti invites the audience to contemplate this way of life—and that’s all the film seeks to accomplish, which is plenty—he reveals the virtues of simplicity, routine, and quietly communing with the natural world.

Cousin Jules is in many ways a wonder to see and hear, but there is less to it than meets the eye.