The 400 Blows is a film that every teenager must see. When I was 14 (Antonie's age in the film I suppose), I hated everything. I hated school, I hated living with my parents, and I didn't want to be subordinate to society on the whole. To put it simply, I wanted to just get out there and live my life instead of being picked on by school teachers and essentially be an outcast amongst my peers, who were spoiled rich white males thinking with their you know whats instead of their brains. Antonie Doinel is a character who used his mind and what did he get? He was sent to reform school. He possesses the traits of every average adolescent male. He wants to expand his mind (he reads Balzac), doesn't do his work, riles up the teacher, doesn't really get along with his parents (although his father seems to have more vested interest in the boy), defaces classroom walls, and looks at and defaces pinups. Quite simply, his character is one of the most complex to ever be created.
In short, The 400 Blows is about an unwanted teenaged boy who submits to the world of petty crime when the rest of the world has turned his back on him. There's an interesting line that Antoine's father says to him at the beginning of the film. The boy is running back from the grocery store with flour for his mother and he runs into his dad coming home from work. "Always running son, eh?" And that's what we see for the full 99 minutes of The 400 Blows. Sure, Antoine is actually running (especially at the emotional climax) but he's psychologically running away from the very people holding him back from breaking out in the world, be it his parents, the authorities, and so forth. There is so much other things that we see that cannot be fit into this review. Antoine and his friend Rene skip school one day and go around town. Antoine goes into a gravitron, which is an amusement park ride that spins around in circles. And that's what his life is doing: he may enjoy the ride for the time being, but he's ending up where he started from.
The film is not without humor, though. One cannot help but laugh when Antoine tells his teacher after skipping class that his mother died. "Personal preference obviously," his father says in response to the mother venting about such news. Also, Antoine's letter to his parents explaining why he ran away sounds like an adult wrote it, but there is some humor to it. "We'll discuss all that's happened" it says. Even Antoine getting expelled from school after plagiarizing Balzac is pretty humorous and he decides not to go home and live with Rene. They end up stealing little things such as posters, clocks, and they go to the movies. However, when he pinches a typewriter from his father's office, that's the end of his little rebellion. He is sent to a correctional facility (and this is an emotional scene, as the boy is placed in a police wagon and cries as he takes a look of the streets of Paris at night). Perhaps the most emotional scenes take place in the final portion of the film. Antoine is placed under psychiatric evaluation, where he reveals he was born out of wedlock and his mother wanted an abortion (this is hinted at in the beginning when he runs in on a conversation between two old ladies talking about forceps and a Cesarean section...perhaps they were indeed talking about an abortion procedure. Antoine feels uncomfortable around this conversation and we can see it). He can't see Rene when he visits, and his mother tells him he's on his own (although I wished Antoine would've told her "I hate you").
After briefly listening to a young delinquent who was caught trying to escape, Antoine decides to do so and bolts during a soccer game. We just see Antoine running, and running, and running. There's no music at first until he gets to the ocean. Truffaut pulls the cameras back and we see an endless horizon, endless opportunities for our young protagonist. The musical score plays and this is where I continue to get misty eyed with every viewing. Antoine, who has never seen the ocean, runs within the current, but has nowhere to go. The film ends in the famous freeze frame with a closeup of the boy's face. Either he's been caught, doesn't know what to do, or this mimics the mugshot sequence that we saw before he went into the correctional facility. The ending leaves a lot to the imagination, but there's one thing that cannot be imagined: The 400 Blows is easily the most touching film I've ever seen. I don't think I'll see another one quite like this.
Everything seems to lock into place here. The acting superbly executes brilliant dialogue. Truffaut has some innovative camera movements (the darkening of the corridor while Antoine takes out the garbage and the final shot are examples of this) throughout. The musical score is beautiful. And, France isn't portrayed as this very romantic country. No, it is dark, it is gloomy. This is the dark side of this very storied nation. Here, Francois Truffaut tells his story to the viewer. When I first bought 400 Blows, I didn't know what to expect. I figured I'd pick it up because 46 years after its initial release there was still a lot of critical buzz around it. I'm glad I spent the 30 dollars on this film, easily my favorite of all time next to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I only have one complaint: I wish I'd have seen The 400 Blows when I was 14. It probably would have saved my life more than the music I was listening to.
In short, The 400 Blows is about an unwanted teenaged boy who submits to the world of petty crime when the rest of the world has turned his back on him. There's an interesting line that Antoine's father says to him at the beginning of the film. The boy is running back from the grocery store with flour for his mother and he runs into his dad coming home from work. "Always running son, eh?" And that's what we see for the full 99 minutes of The 400 Blows. Sure, Antoine is actually running (especially at the emotional climax) but he's psychologically running away from the very people holding him back from breaking out in the world, be it his parents, the authorities, and so forth. There is so much other things that we see that cannot be fit into this review. Antoine and his friend Rene skip school one day and go around town. Antoine goes into a gravitron, which is an amusement park ride that spins around in circles. And that's what his life is doing: he may enjoy the ride for the time being, but he's ending up where he started from.
The film is not without humor, though. One cannot help but laugh when Antoine tells his teacher after skipping class that his mother died. "Personal preference obviously," his father says in response to the mother venting about such news. Also, Antoine's letter to his parents explaining why he ran away sounds like an adult wrote it, but there is some humor to it. "We'll discuss all that's happened" it says. Even Antoine getting expelled from school after plagiarizing Balzac is pretty humorous and he decides not to go home and live with Rene. They end up stealing little things such as posters, clocks, and they go to the movies. However, when he pinches a typewriter from his father's office, that's the end of his little rebellion. He is sent to a correctional facility (and this is an emotional scene, as the boy is placed in a police wagon and cries as he takes a look of the streets of Paris at night). Perhaps the most emotional scenes take place in the final portion of the film. Antoine is placed under psychiatric evaluation, where he reveals he was born out of wedlock and his mother wanted an abortion (this is hinted at in the beginning when he runs in on a conversation between two old ladies talking about forceps and a Cesarean section...perhaps they were indeed talking about an abortion procedure. Antoine feels uncomfortable around this conversation and we can see it). He can't see Rene when he visits, and his mother tells him he's on his own (although I wished Antoine would've told her "I hate you").
After briefly listening to a young delinquent who was caught trying to escape, Antoine decides to do so and bolts during a soccer game. We just see Antoine running, and running, and running. There's no music at first until he gets to the ocean. Truffaut pulls the cameras back and we see an endless horizon, endless opportunities for our young protagonist. The musical score plays and this is where I continue to get misty eyed with every viewing. Antoine, who has never seen the ocean, runs within the current, but has nowhere to go. The film ends in the famous freeze frame with a closeup of the boy's face. Either he's been caught, doesn't know what to do, or this mimics the mugshot sequence that we saw before he went into the correctional facility. The ending leaves a lot to the imagination, but there's one thing that cannot be imagined: The 400 Blows is easily the most touching film I've ever seen. I don't think I'll see another one quite like this.
Everything seems to lock into place here. The acting superbly executes brilliant dialogue. Truffaut has some innovative camera movements (the darkening of the corridor while Antoine takes out the garbage and the final shot are examples of this) throughout. The musical score is beautiful. And, France isn't portrayed as this very romantic country. No, it is dark, it is gloomy. This is the dark side of this very storied nation. Here, Francois Truffaut tells his story to the viewer. When I first bought 400 Blows, I didn't know what to expect. I figured I'd pick it up because 46 years after its initial release there was still a lot of critical buzz around it. I'm glad I spent the 30 dollars on this film, easily my favorite of all time next to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I only have one complaint: I wish I'd have seen The 400 Blows when I was 14. It probably would have saved my life more than the music I was listening to.
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