Here are this week’s Hidden Treasures. Enjoy!

Jules et Jim (1962)
Jules et Jim is the chronicle of a failed experiment, undertaken by three people who love each other very much, yet are ultimately doomed by their inability to recognize that friendship and romance do not always mix well. Jules (Oskar Werner), a shy German living abroad, has found a good friend in Jim (Henri Serre), an outgoing Frenchman. It’s a friendship that blossoms over time, forged in the streets of Paris, where both men enjoy their share of the single life in the days leading up to World War One. Then, one day, Jules and Jim are introduced to Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), a woman whose rare beauty captures both of their hearts. A free spirit, Catherine, in turn, loves both Jules and Jim, and through the years each man will have a turn at possessing her. Yet Catherine, whose nature is unpredictable, is ultimately a treasure neither can truly own. The mission of Truffaut’s Jules et Jim was to get below the surface, to expose the truth lying just under the artifice. At first, Catherine appears to be the embodiment of both men’s perfect woman, yet as time wears on (and thanks to a wonderful performance from Moreau), she becomes a much more complex character, whose deep love for both Jules and Jim threatens any chance she might have at forming a lasting relationship with either one. This situation also takes its toll on Jules’ and Jim’s friendship. Ultimately, both consent to share Catherine, convinced that such an unusual combination of romance and friendship may, in fact, be the perfect condition under which love will blossom. However, this arrangement only results in each man feeling unsatisfied, unfulfilled, and driven by the desire to possess her exclusively. As it turns out, neither Jules nor Jim were truly prepared for this so-called ‘perfect’ union, and one might argue that Catherine, despite her outer worldliness, was also well out of her league.

The Odd Couple (1968)
The teaming of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau to star in The Odd Couple seemed a natural pairing, what with their success two years earlier in Billy Wilder’s uproarious comedy, The Fortune Cookie. Armed here with some hilarious Neil Simon dialogue, the two veteran actors display a natural chemistry, and their teamwork helped transform The Odd Couple into one of the funniest movies of the 1960’s. Neat-freak Felix Unger (Lemmon) falls into a deep depression after his wife throws him out of the house. With nowhere to turn, he pays a visit to his divorced friend, the slovenly Oscar Madison (Matthau), who invites Felix to move into his apartment. Even though Felix and Oscar have very little in common, they somehow find a way to make this arrangement work. Things begin to fall apart, however, when Felix is less than enthusiastic about a dinner date with the new neighbors, a pair of British sisters named Cecily (Monica Evans) and Gwendolyn (Carole Shelley). When the date ends abruptly, Oscar blames Felix, and, before long, the two old friends are at each other’s throats. Both actors do enjoy a few funny moments on their own (at the beginning of the film, Lemmon’s Felix, whose despair over his failed marriage has driven him to attempt suicide, plans to do so by jumping from a hotel window. Unfortunately, he throws his back out trying to get the window open). However, it’s the scenes where Lemmon and Matthau are together that truly stand out. I could point to countless examples of their perfectly timed give-and-take, but my favorite is most definitely the ‘meatloaf incident’. In this sequence, Felix is busy in the kitchen preparing a meatloaf for their dinner date with the sisters from upstairs. Oscar arrives home late, and is chastised by Felix for not getting there sooner to help with the meal. As time passes, Oscar discovers that Felix is actually upset because he had timed his meal to be done at 7:30, and now, at eight o’clock, his meatloaf is drying out. “Can’t you pour some gravy over it?” asks Oscar. When Felix points out that they have no gravy, Oscar, obviously a novice in the kitchen, says that he assumed gravy just automatically ‘came’ with the meat. Before long, Felix is threatening Oscar with a ladle. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of The Odd Couple is how little the movie has aged. After 40 years, it still manages to generate some hearty laughs. Of course, the credit for this must go to Lemmon and Matthau, whose timing is so precise that it’s almost scientific. Of all the films in which they appeared together, including The Front Page, Buddy Buddy and Grumpy Old Men, I don’t believe they ever again matched the comedic precision on display here. The Odd Couple proved to be the perfect teaming of two immensely talented comedians, with each one, in turn, playing their perfect role.

Run Lola Run (1998)
Run Lola Run has an incredible energy to it. In the very first scene, director Tom Tykwer gets our adrenaline pumping. From the moment the security guard (Armin Rohde) looks into the camera and says, “here we go”, Run Lola Run barely stops to take a breath. After completing a transaction for the mob, Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) was on his way to deliver 100,000 DM to local crime boss, Ronnie (Heino Ferch), when he accidentally left the bag containing the money in a subway car, remembering it only as the train was speeding away. With exactly twenty minutes to go before he’s expected with the money, Manni calls his girlfriend, Lola (Franka Potente), and asks her for help. Lola spends the next twenty minutes running through the streets as quickly as she can to reach Manni, who’s on the other side of town, all the while trying to figure out how she can get her hands on such a large sum of money. It seems that Lola has a limited number of options available to her, and before Run Lola Run is complete, we will have seen three of them. This is what makes Run Lola Run such a fascinating film. Crammed within its 80 minute running time are three different versions of the exact same story. We watch Lola’s run through the streets play out three separate times, each one slightly modified so that the results are completely different. By approaching the entire film from an almost philosophical standpoint, and addressing the notion that the slightest alteration to any event, whether it be turning left instead of right, or looking up instead of down, could drastically change the outcome of said event, director Tykwer does more in Run Lola Run than merely excite our senses; he also dares us to think. With such an ingenious approach, and combined with rhythmic techno music to keeps things hopping, Run Lola Run will positively blow you away.