To the observant viewer, however, it is obvious from the very beginning of "Jules and Jim" that something is amiss. Before the credits, while the screen is dark, Moreau's voice pronounces these words: "You said to me: I love you. I said to you: wait. I was going to say: take me. You said to me: go away." The mystery, the enigmatic, vaguely ominous prosaicness of Moreau's words spoken in darkness, undermines the brightness to come.

After the war, Jim travels to Germany to visit Catherine and Jules, who have a young daughter named Sabine. When the threesome meet again, they all comment that nothing and none of them has changed. There is a bitter pang as Truffaut undercuts their statement Everything has changed; Jules no longer smokes and has taken to entomology, Jim has shorn his moustache and seems older, Catherine wears glasses and appears less radiant. Jules informs Jim that things are not going well, that he has not been able to hold Catherine, and that Catherine has run away several times. Jules is determined not to lose Catherine, and so he encourages Jim's interest in her. Even if she becomes Jim's lover, she will still be around, and Jules is content with Catherine's mere presence.

This initiates a complex series of musical beds, betrayals and farewells, all set in the idyllic countryside along the Rhine where Jules and Catherine live. This menage a trois is what set the Legion of Decency's teeth on edge, but it is easy to see the appeal of the world-weary romanticism that the film depicts. Trufaut's movie has been tremendously influential, and all sorts of directors have taken inspiration from it. There is a lovely scene where the party goes bicycle riding, and which Philip Kaufman later took up in "Henry and June." Anyone who has seen Jane Campion's "The Piano" will experience the shock of recognition when Truffaut shows a scene of Jules cutting wood outside his chalet and giving it to Sabine to carry in her arms while Jim and Catherine make love upstairs.

Jeanne Moreau is the complex, disturbing center of the film, and her performace is such that it is difficult to know what to make of Catherine. When Jim tells Catherine that he understands her, she replies, "I do not want to be understood." All the men in the film spend their time trying to understand or define her, but it is precisely what she is trying to avoid, and they are never very successful.

Albert, who becomes Catherine's lover while Jim is visiting Jules and Catherine, writes her a song which discusses her "visage de femme fatale qui m'fut fatale," the face of a femme fatale who was fatal to him. And Albert is the one who describes the statue which Catherine resembles, "the lips are very beautiful...a little disdainful. The eyes are very fine too." Jules says that Catherine is "neither particularly beautiful, nor intelligent, nor sincere, but she is a real woman...and she is a woman we love...and whom all men desire."

Jules' definition might be the closest one to the truth, but it is still not easy to define Moreau's appeal. A lot of it has to do with her unique voice, husky, slightly raspy, but nevertheless smooth, like honey shot through with smoke. To hear that voice speaking French is something of a revelation. Even in claptrap like "La Femme Nikita," her distinctive voice elevated the pedestrian dialogue about a woman's beauty to the realm of poetry. Her voice cracks words open to reveal their intrinsic poetry and beauty, and when she sings, she is dangerously enchanging. Is it any wonder that Jim, Jules and Albert find her irresistible?

The devastating twist that makes the ending is a surprise, and nevertheless absolutely logical. One feels slightly battered, and yet exhilarated, and ultimately filled with a sweet melancholy. The film's pleasures are practically inexhaustible. There is Marie Dubois as Therese, the chain-smoking philandering, cocotte. There is Georges Delerue's haunting, evocative music. There is the carefree relationship between Jules and Jim, which is made possible by Werner's and Serre's terrific performances. And when all else and, there is Jeanne Moreau's voice. At one point, the film's narrator tells the audience that "the month that [Catherine and Jim] spent together was graven in their memories by a multitude of small but perfect details.' There could not be a more apt description of the two hours that one spends with "Jules and Jim".