Search - 400 Blows on DVD

Sympathetic and engaging

Dennis Littrell | SoCal | 05/24/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"An idiomatic translation of the French title of this movie, Les quatre cents coup, would be something like "Raising Hell," understood ironically. Twelve-year-old Antoine Doinel, played very winningly by Jean-Pierre Leaud, doesn't suffer "400 blows," although he does get mistreated quite a bit, and he doesn't mean to raise hell or to be a problem to his parents or society. He's just a boy being a boy. Unfortunately his mother (Claire Mauier), who is more like a wicked step-mother than the boy's biological mother (although she is that) would like to be rid of him so that she can spend more time pursuing her hobby, which is adultery. His cuckolded step-father (Albert Remy) is no help, although he seems to care more for the boy than his mother. And the institutions of society, as represented by his school, the Parisian police, and the social services people, seem intent on turning poor Antoine into a criminal. Truffaut ends the movie at a spot where it is still far from clear where Antoine is really headed, but we can guess that his spirit will be undaunted.Some have called this, Francois Truffaut's first feature, realism, but if it's realism, so is Charles Dickens. This is an extended slice of life, a coming-of-ager stopped before the boy does become of age, and in this sense original. Truffaut paints everybody but the boy and his best friend in such a negative hue that we cannot help but identify with Antoine. This is not realism, but it doesn't matter because this is a splendid film, perhaps not as great as some have claimed, but very much worth watching because of Leaud's fine performance and Truffaut's original and charming presentation of Paris in the 1950s. In one sense Truffaut makes the City of Light a child's playground, and in another, it is a repressive, indifferent monolith. Antoine's transgressions--ditching school, telling lies, stealing from his grandmother--are trivial. But Truffaut wants to make sure we don't misunderstand so he has the boy get into trouble for (1) having a magazine passed to him in class, (2) unconsciously memorizing Balzac (he is accused of plagiarism by his fascist teacher) (3) returning a typewriter, which admittedly he had lifted, and (4) lighting a candle in honor of Balzac (which starts a fire).My favorite scene is the one with the psychiatrist in which we hear her questions, but the camera stays on Antoine. His candid, eminently reasonable and entirely sane answers to her questions demonstrate that he is a completely normal, even admirable boy, and that it is society and its stupid adults that are off the mark.The faces of the children at the Punch and Judy show are wonderful and the sequence of Antoine running and running so gracefully and seemingly with little effort symbolizes the longing that all children have to be free.While I think this famous movie is perhaps a little over-rated, I can tell you that if you haven't seen it you are in danger of being labeled a cinematic illiterate."