400 Blows, The (1959) [Blu-ray]
Crime | Drama

The Criterion Collection

Francois Truffaut's first feature is also his most personal. Told through the eyes of Truffaut's cinematic counterpart, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups) sensitively re-creates the trials of Truffaut's own difficult childhood, unsentimentally portraying aloof parents, oppressive teachers, and petty crime. The film marks Truffaut's passage from leading critic of trailblazing auteur of the French New Wave.

Storyline: A young Parisian boy, Antoine Doinel, neglected by his derelict parents, skips school, sneaks into movies, runs away from home, steals things, and tries (disastrously) to return them. Like most kids, he gets into more trouble for things he thinks are right than for his actual trespasses. Unlike most kids, he gets whacked with the big stick. He inhabits a Paris of dingy flats, seedy arcades, abandoned factories, and workaday streets, a city that seems big and full of possibilities only to a child's eye. Written by alfiehitchie

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov on March 1, 2009 -- Nominated for the prestigious Palme d'Or and winner of the Best Director and OCIC Awards at the Cannes Film Festival, François Truffaut's "The 400 Blows" (1959) is a true treasure of World Cinema. The film is inspired by the French director's own childhood story. Courtesy of the Criterion Collection.

12-year old Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud, Masculin féminin:15 faits précis) is a troublemaker. He skips school and goes to the movies, steals, lies and runs away from home. But he wants to be good; he takes care of the garbage and helps his stepfather cook. Occasionally, he even tries to get his homework done.

At school, Antoine isn't liked. His teacher (Guy Decombie, Thérèse Étienne) is convinced that the youngster is always up to no good and routinely reminds him of it. Antoine doesn't like his teacher either. The two argue a lot and the boy often ends up standing alone in front of the classroom board.

Antoine's mother (Claire Maurier, Une gueule comme la mienne) isn't too fond of her son. She is also having an affair with another man who treats her in a way her husband doesn't. Because she has grown tired of the tiny apartment the Doinel family shares, she spends as much time away from it as possible. Antoine's stepfather does not know about his wife's affair; he believes that she works a lot to provide for the family.

While away from school, Antoine sees his mother with her lover. He does not reveal to his stepfather what he has seen, but makes it clear to his mother that he knows about her affair. Things change for the better and the Doinel family become closer.

Very soon, however, Antoine is again in trouble. He is caught stealing and quickly sent to a correctional facility. The boy is angry and so are his parents. As time goes by, Antoine learns about life, responsibility and dignity. Eventually, he earns his freedom but not the forgiveness of his family.

François Truffaut's The 400 Blows chronicles a young boy's struggle to become independent in a world ruled by adults. We begin to feel about Antoine the moment we see him, we understand what his heart desires, but we also realize that he cannot outsmart those he disagrees with; as the story progresses, we see that he is always punished when he attempts to see the world around him without the usual stop signs.

Like all great coming-of-age films, The 400 Blows boasts memorable images that linger with you long after the end credits roll. There are scenes here that are so beautiful we don't want the main characters to utter their lines and disrupt the magic. It is almost as if we have discovered a painting that has suddenly become alive; Truffaut's The 400 Blows is that mesmerizingly beautiful and real.

Dedicated to the great André Bazin – a close friend of Truffaut and founder of Cahiers du cinema, the influential French film magazine - The 400 Blows is also an incredibly tender film. Even though Antoine experiences so many disappointments, we rarely see him angry. On the contrary, he finds humor in his failures and smiles at those who punish him; we do not detect a sense of guilt through his actions either.

I saw The 400 Blows relatively late (after I had already seen Louis Malle's Le Souffle au Coeur a.k.a Murmur of the Heart [1971], another terrific coming-of-age film). For reasons I'd rather not talk about here, I ended up attending a screening where the film was shown to a selected few, dubbed in a foreign language. I doubt those who saw it with me understood what it was about; they most certainly acted like they didn't. Later on, I remember many openly dismissing it as a naive and childish story about a boy who couldn't stay away from trouble. For me, The 400 Blows was a revelation. The final scene where Antoine looks at the ocean and then runs into the water overjoyed by his newly found freedom stayed with me for years. For the first time in my life, I saw a rebel who did not resort to violence in order to break free of the world he couldn't tolerate. I remember being inspired.

Criterion deliver again! Truffaut's timeless The 400 Blows looks and sounds spectacular! I am unsure what to say here that hasn't already been said better by other film critics. So, I would simply like to encourage you to do whatever it takes to add The 400 Blows to your film collections. Simply put, they will be incomplete without it. Very Highly Recommended.

[CSW] -3- It was a good portrayal of that time period and of that culture but I somehow expected more.
[V4.5-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.

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