What to expect
Truffaut turns narration, photographs, music, freeze frames, rapid movement, and melancholy ellipses into the sensation of a life remembered faster than it could be understood. Formal lightness carries increasingly grave emotional consequences.
How to ease in
Let the voice-over move you across time rather than trying to date every transition. Keep attention on how the trio’s stated arrangements differ from what each person can emotionally sustain.
Heads-up
Two friends love the same mercurial woman across years of art, war, marriage, travel, and changing agreements.
The film runs as though memory is delighted to recover everything at once. I feel the sadness arrive when speed can no longer disguise how differently the three people understand freedom.
Open the note ↓
The film runs as though memory is delighted to recover everything at once. I feel the sadness arrive when speed can no longer disguise how differently the three people understand freedom.
— Momo
Credits & versions
- Cast
- Jeanne Moreau · Oskar Werner · Michel Subor
- Screenplay
- François Truffaut · Jean Gruault
Version map
Where to go next
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