I once wrote somewhere that my favorite types of movies are the heartbreaking ones... And they scare me so much I'm almost afraid to finish them. It's like they are going to tell me what I don't want to hear, but knew all along.

For the last hour I've been watching Jules et Jim, and--I find myself saying this about every movie that moves me--it's so honest. Honest to the human monotony that settles out of comfort and love and disdain for the ordinary.

Last weekend, we went to a bar in the Lower East Side. A single TV screen hung in the corner above its liquor shelves. It was on mute, but the captions were on. What caught my eyes was that it was in black and white, and the woman uttered the words "Don't cause pain, Jim" right at the moment that I looked up. And I was captivated. I googled the lines and found Jules et Jim. You can watch it here.

The French make such extraordinary films. They don't sugar coat or try to paint a rosy picture like most American film of the same era. This movie is beautiful because it is honest, and dirty, and doesn't lie to me. So much so that I almost cannot handle how it presents the world to me, so unfiltered.