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Written by Mandroid3000
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THE 400 BLOWS***** out of *****Genres
Drama
1959
Directed by
François Truffaut
Writing credits
François Truffaut & Marcel Moussy
Cast
Jean-Pierre Léaud .... Antoine Doinel
Claire Maurier .... Gilberte Doinel, the Mother
Albert Rémy .... Julien Doinel
Guy Decomble .... 'Petite Feuille', the French teacher
Georges Flamant .... Mr. Bigey
Patrick Auffay .... Rene
The 400 Blows was one of the first of the French New Wave films. As someone who watches a lot of narrative heavy films, it was hard at first to adjust to the film’s flow. Things happen naturally, the meaning of them isn’t clearly underlined. No one comes in and offers any thinly disguised exposition. You have to be in the a mindset of watching a film, rather than being spoon fed it. It would be a tragedy if this put anyone off seeing the film because Truffaut captures the childhood joy of discovery and freedom, and the feeling of isolation an adolescent can have from the adult world. It’s a haunting, beautiful film.
The 400 Blows tracks the downfall of Antoine Doinel, a typical, perhaps a bit below average, school student. His teachers at his school seem to be too rigid for a student like him. The sort of behaviour we all probably got away with at primary school is crushed, and it’s no wonder that he feels out of place in the environment.
His relationship with his parents is strained as well. The father, who seems at first to be the good guy, instead turns out to be rather neglectful. While he seems to have a harmless hobby of motor racing on the weekend, this leaves no time for Antoine. His mother is having an affair, and it turns out didn’t want Antoine in the first place. They have no interest in changing their own lifestyle to take account of their son, and this means any of Antoine’s indiscretions are met with annoyance rather than understanding.
So it’s no wonder he often skips school and runs away from home. The first of his excursions is merely for pleasure. But each time he starts to try and make serious plans about living away from home. After he runs away and sleeps for a night in a factory he goes back to school, seemingly unaware that he can’t just carry on his life in this way. Later he plans with a classmate to go into some sort of business together, which ends up being petty theft.
One of the triumphs of the film is how they manage to take a kid who ultimately doesn’t seem to be so bad, and show how he can through indifference and neglect end up in an institution for delinquents. When he has an examination with a psychiatrist his explanations for some of his crimes may seem dubious if they came from a grown-up, but from what we’ve learned about him and the examples he’s been set, the explanations are completely reasonable.
What is hard to describe is how a film that takes in all of this can be beautiful and thrilling, how something that sounds like a run-of-the-mill drama can be a masterpiece. And maybe that’s ultimately a sign of true cinematic mastery, its essence can’t be captured on a page, you have to watch it.
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