Rating: 
Summary: 400 blows for freedom.
Review: In terms of plot, 'the 400 Blows' is re-fried neo-realism; the scenes where the adolescent hero Antoine is locked up like an animal and sent to a borstal, is so manipulative, even de Sica might have balked. What makes 'Blows' film the masterpiece it is, is Truffaut's style, galvanised by freedom: personal freedom, freedom from the dead French cinema past, freedom from the studio, freedom to break the rules. He doesn't quite do the latter - the film is meticulously classical in its structure - but there is a bracing fresh air throughout, the camera as light and supple as a wave of the hand, Truffaut willing to assert comedy in the most dismal situations, relishing digressions, gags, unexpected bloopers, horseplay. 'Blows' is a film about entrapment, but if Antoine is caged and institutionalised, he also finds freedom caged at the funfair, where a zoetrope-like cylinder gives him a new way of looking at the world, just as Truffaut takes cinema back to year zero, starting again, making the world and our eyes new again. 'Blows' makes you feel anything is possible, even if 40 years of formulaic mundanity suggests otherwise. When Antoine famously runs across a beach, the very sand seems to move under him. Like the chapter in Joyce's 'Ulysses' it quotes, we are asked to transform a rigid external world with our minds.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful film deserves a beautiful transfer
Review: As other reviews say, this film is outstanding - moving, and unrelentingly true in its depiction of oppressed youth. Like another classic of French cinema, 'Rififi', it combines realism with lyricism. Shame then about the quality of the DVD transfer - there is notable and recurrent distortion in the voices (fortunately the music is largely unaffected), and the image lacks clarity and contrast. At the moment there is no alternative to this (FoxLorber) version, so I would encourage anyone vacillating to buy it anyway - Truffaut's work is that good, and despite obvious shortcomings the transfer remains readily watchable; but it's strange how the classics of cinema fail to receive the technical treatment they deserve.
Rating:
Summary: A film for all time
Review: Like many of the reviewers here, I find it very hard to sum up what this film says to me. First of all, it really doesn't "say" much of anything if you are thinking that every piece of art must be didactic, or have a little moral point to make. The film reminds me of the tales of Chekhov, where people portrayed with brilliant realism do some things, and suddenly realize, with a shock, the nature of reality and what it is exactly that they are doing. This film on the surface is just the tale of a boy being brought up in a dysfunctional Parisian family, and what happens to him. That's all! But it is a movie that will make you think profoundly, and make you feel profoundly. Because the characters are so real. The familiar figure of a neglectful mother, concerned only for her looks and her status, in this film makes one demand: but how could she neglect this boy? What harm has she ever been done by the young one? As the film moves along, you will see the nature of the "harm" done to her, and understand her a bit better, but in the end you must face up to an overwhelming sadness at the human insensitivity displayed by almost all the "grown-ups" in this film. They cast the Antoine Doinel character to his fate with hardly a backward glance. In sum, a film for the ages. And a good proof that, yes, films can be important works of art. Highest recommendation!
Rating:
Summary: Deeply moving...
Review: I have seen a number of Truffaut movies over the years and had always meant to take this one in. I was aware of the Antoine Doinel series and had seen "Stolen Kisses." That film was much lighter fare, however, and I was not at all prepared for the emotional impact that this earlier film would have. Childhood is often romanticized in the cinema. Every once in a while you see a film that reminds you of how powerless children are and how they struggle to comprehend their world. Truffaut succeeds in reminding us of that fact without ever becoming mawkish or maudlin in the process. "400 Blows" ranks with "Forbidden Games" and Truffaut's later "The Wild Child" in portraying the world of childhood in all its beauty, strangeness and terror.
Rating:
Summary: Lie flat on a mat after viewing.
Review: To talk or write about this little film isn't exactly easy for me. This is not because I find it to be extremely powerful, which I do, but because I can't help but feel like the most inadequate writer when I try to put my thoughts and emotions into words. I might as well have a speech impediment, some severe form of aphasia. If you've ever tried to create anything to represent yourself, you'll probably find Truffaut's first work to be humbling. The man made that very difficult jump from critic to creator and in the process crafted one of the most beautiful films since light was first fed through celluloid and photography came alive on a white sheet. This is probably the best movie of what's now come to be known as the French new wave, although it's by no means the most representative one. If you want a more accurate portrayal of this movement, you're better off tracing Godard's career, which overall is far more impressive than Truffaut's, but I'd take The 400 Blows in a head-to-head match with any given one of Godard's films. Truffaut went on to making a few good (Shoot the Piano Player, for example) and a few acceptable (i.e. Small Change, which is far too sweet, but would probably go well with the volume turned down and a Boards of Canada CD playing on the background) films after the success of The 400 Blows, but he never came close to replicating even the mood of this autobiographical piece. This film responds to Andre Bazin's question of what is cinema by merely pointing towards itself.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing DVD release
Review: This "restored" version of one of the greatest films of all time is scratchy, murky and muffled sounding. By far the biggest disappointment though is the truly [poor] commentary by Glenn Kenny (who???) of Premiere Magazine. Is he is the best they could get?? Mr. Kenny's idea of commentary goes something like this: "Now we see the boys in class. Now here's the teacher. Now we see them destroying the glasses." UGH!
Rating:
Summary: BIRTH OF A MYTH
Review: For years, I've avoided director François Truffaut's movies. I don't know exactly why. I was perhaps, like many european movie lovers, intimately convinced that Cinema = Hollywood. Or was it maybe the unanimous critical adoration surrounding this director ? So it's really with a little reluctance that I have decided to take a look at THE 400 BLOWS, presented by Criterion. First movie of the director, THE 400 BLOWS, shot in b&w, presents the first adventures of Antoine Doinel, played by a lunar Jean-Pierre Léaud. This character will reappear in 4 or 5 other Truffaut movies during the sixties and the seventies. He is, so to speak, the double of the director who is able through Antoine Doinel to live a second (imaginary) life. Quite unique in Movie History. THE 400 BLOWS stands very well the test of time and can still be considered as a masterpiece 42 years after its theatrical release. Anyway, with Jean Renoir's GRAND ILLUSION, also a Criterion release, it's the best movie I've seen since the beginning of the year. Admirable work of Criterion that has understood that DVDs can be considered as books and deserve the same treatment than our friends made of paper. A DVD for your library.
Rating:
Summary: A Film for all Generations
Review: Francois Truffaut was a born filmmaker, as this, his first feature film, makes startlingly apparent. He took risks with his story, adding details apparently as much from his own experience as from his imagination. For instance, the scene of the school outing in which the students marching down the boulevard escape one by one or in pairs down this alley or that is lifted from Vigo's Zero de Conduite. But so many of the more painful scenes involving Doinel's internment in juvenile camps feels closer to experience than invention. Truffaut elicits sympathy for the parents as well as for Doinel's harrassed teachers. But the boy, played with absolute truth by Jean-Pierre Leaud (who would grow less believable with age), is the heart and soul of the film - Truffaut's heart and soul, in fact. The final freeze-frame ends the film with a poetic pause. That Truffaut found it necessary to make sequels in the life of Doinel, none of which is the equal of Les 400 Coups, reveals the extent to which, for Truffaut if not for his alter-ego, Life Goes On.
Rating:
Summary: Undescribable
Review: My favorite film of all time. I don't get tired of saying that! I saw it four years ago(on Bravo, in its widescreen format! ) and was absolutely mesmerized by what I saw. This is the exact type of film I'd like to make one day. It is simple, honest and devastating. Jean Pierre Leaud is Antoine, a young boy whose never seen the ocean, reads Balzac, and seems to get into all kinds of troubles. Much has been written about this film , and rightly so. The acting is superb, the music is touching and Truffaut's direction is refreshing and innovative. This film was the crowning achievement of the "New Wave" movement in France.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible work of art and film
Review: I saw this film for the first time in my intro to film class, and I loved it instantly. The story is of a young boy in Paris. He attends a school that resembles society, it blames the students for their misbehavior instead of examining the institution itself. He is singled out as a trouble maker by his teachers, even though his actions resemble his classmate's. His parents really don't love him, and attempt to buy his love and obedience. Instead of comforting him and giving him the love he needs to change is disobedient behavior, they send him to a correctional institution. The film is about Leoud's (the boy)life in society and how he longs for freedom and the ocean. For anyone who likes truly GOOD films, see this one. It will blow your mind, make you think, make you laugh, and make you want to cry. 400 Blows is worth seeing and well worth buying.
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