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The 400 Blows
(****)
Never have I had the pleasure of seeing a movie as close to perfection as "The 400 Blows". Truffaut has crafted a brilliant story about a young boy who is so sweet, so lovable, that we instantly love him. But he's put into a world so imperfect that he's seen as a juvenile delinquent. Truffaut himself was on the path to being a criminal before being brought under the wing of Andre Bazin, a french critic. It's this friendship that kept Truffaut from jail, and eventually their fellow love of film brought the director off his path.
Antoin Doinel (Leaud) is about 10 years old, and he lives in Paris with his mother and his father (Maurier and Remy). He tries to do his work and be good in school, but he's the victim of a mean spirited teacher and circumstance. Soon he turns to small time crime and running away to escape the neglect of his parents.
All he wants is freedom. All he wants is love. This is a great kid; but his mother bickers and ignores him. He skips school and, in a great sequence, he sees his mother kissing a man on the street who is not his father. This sets up an uneasy truce for a while, until he has to answer for why he wasn't in school.
But I get ahead of myself. The most important thing to recognize is the truth surrounding this kid. Subtly and obviously, Truffaut shows us just how wrong people are, and how this poor boy has to suffer. Consider the day when he skips school. He goes to an amusement park and gets on a ride. You know the kind; you stand against the wall and it spins around and around faster and faster, and you basically get plastered to the wall. Antoin goes here, and he is able to stand upside down and watch the world spin by. He's a brave kid, and this kind of bravery gets him in trouble. But he quickly rights himself after he's standing on his head.
What does this mean? I encourage you to make your own interpretations, but I think it means that he's not what people think he is. He's curious, but he doesn't want to hurt himself or anyone else.
Watch the camera angles later on. His mother is a royal bitch, and she tells him off. But she's so off-center. The camera isn't even focused on her. She stands there like a tyrant telling Antoin how terrible he is. Then watch Antoin. He sits there, helpless, taking the brunt of her attacks. But we can see him clearly. He's right, and she's wrong. It's painful to be right sometimes.
This is a boy who does not want to hurt anyone. He just wants to be happy and feel loved. But the world he lives in isn't a place that can give that to him. From the first moment we meet him until the last shot, all we can do is hope that things get better.
Things do, of course, get better for him. It's hinted at in the amusement park, but Antoin knows how to right himself. Truffaut made a series of movies with Antoin, his alterego, and we watch the character grow up, and face a family of his own. You gotta love this kid.