I'm not sure where to start about Jules et Jim... It's a film about friendship, love, and the passing of time.

Jules and Jim have the type of friendship anyone dreams of; understanding, unconditional, exciting, stimulating. They share many things, even some women. One day, however, Jules meets Catherine, a French girl, and her "serene smile" and freewheeling personality immediately captivate him. Jules tells Jim that he is really interested in her, so Jim does not try anything. Having set the limits, Catherine, Jules, and Jim become a close-knit group. The three of them go on holiday together. There's a complicity to everything they do, along with spiritual curiosity and sexual tension. Catherine seems to be a liberated, poetic, "real" woman and Jim can't help falling in love with her in silence. Jules marries her. After their marriage, Jim reenters the picture.

I found the characters well-written and very well acted. Jeanne Moreau's face is one of the most expressive I have ever seen. In the same way, Oskar Werner and Henri Serre deliver great lines and give the film some truly powerful moments of insight. Also, much of the film regards the passing of time. In fact, at moments it passes very quickly, at others, a week seems a century. Truffaut introduces a narrative style that can serve any purpose or style.

We are not explained everything about the characters' behaviors, but we have room and clues to try. Unlike whatever or whoever controls their fate, Jules and Jim have to follow the succession to their choices with not a single idea of what awaits them at the end of the line. They don't even care. The moment they surrendered themselves to Catherine, the background went out of focus, and there are only two things that will carry and englobe them: their relationship with Catherine, and with each other.

The film takes place before, during, and after WWI. After being face to face with death at the front, after fearing the loss of each other, they don't want to miss out on anything: Jim will pursue Catherine with Jules's blessing, Jules won't leave Catherine and will try not to be jealous of his friend. Catherine, who has become increasingly uncomfortable, capricious and unstable, won't give anything up either. It isn't as easy as it sounds.This all happens during the second half of the film, which transcurs in an uncomfortable ease and is full of beautiful, sad images. Truffaut refrains from passing moral judgement and simply proceeds to take us to the unavoidable tragic finale.

The story has so much emotion running through it I found it very engaging. It made me angry at the characters just as much as it made me want to meet them an play a domino match in their empty beach house.

Truffaut's camerawork is wonderful. He could uncover different aspects, or unite different aspects, of a scene, with a traveling camera (he used a hand-held camera). He thus amplified the reach of a single scene, and made the entire film move. Truffaut also tried to give it an extra edge with several freeze-frames.

Complex, daring, beautiful. Jules and Jim is those three things. It's alive, fast, full of wit and humor, with sudden fits of melancholy. Truffaut's experimentation feels like curiosity and excitement, not pretentiousness, and his subject matter and the delicate way in which he treats it feels audacious, not sensationalist. Once more I admire his storytelling, and the innocence that permeates all of his craft.