The 400 Blows

Rating:
Summary: Truffaut brings out a brilliant cinematic experience...
Review: Antoine Doinel lives in a family where the parents are preoccupied with their own existence and therefore parental supervision is lacking. In school Antoine is frequently reprimanded as he does not see the importance of school and at home there is an absence of encouragement to perform well in school. As a consequence, Antoine skips school, steals, and attempts to find his niche in life outside the world where he does not fit in. 400 Blows is arguably one of the best films of the French New Wave Cinema as it tells a realistic story of a child's needs and wants in a social structure created by the children in the absence of adults. Under the direction of François Truffaut, the cast brings out the best in themselves as actors as Truffaut brings a heartbreaking narrative to the audience, which will continue to baffle people of the world for many years to come.

Rating:
Summary: Not a very good movie.
Review: I don't mind slow movies, but this movie is slow + boring and 100% predictable. In my opinion, it's terrible.

Rating:
Summary: 400 Blows
Review: I've spent decades avoiding THE 400 BLOWS, afraid it was either dark and brooding, or a documentation of child abuse (physical and/or emotional), or an angry and vindictive assault on the authors' of Francois Truffaut's traumatic childhood.
I shouldn't have worried. THE 400 BLOWS is a gentle and compassionate movie. It isn't overwhelmed by its anger, although a few characters, particularly the coming-of-age hero's mother and his school teacher, aren't terribly sympathetic. Being new to THE 400 BLOWS, I found the commentary by Premiere magazine film critic Glen Kenny especially helpful in understanding French New Wave cinema in general and Truffaut in particular. By the way, according to Kenny "400 blows" refers to a French colloquialism similar to the American "paint the town red." It means to give oneself over to every type of excess, and raise a little heck in the process.

Rating:
Summary: An historically important film
Review: In my opinion, this film must be viewed in the context of its importance in cinematic history to be fully appreciated. If not, one tends to be puzzled about the rave reviews it has received over the years.

The thirteen-year-old protagonist, Antoine Doniel, is rebelling against his bleak home life. As he discovers later in the film, his mother considered having an abortion, rather than giving birth to him. The man he thought was his genetic father just married his mother to give him a name (what a concept). Antoine's father doen't like him much, and ultimately sends Antoine word through is mother that he is through with Antoine.

Antoine rebels by being disruptive at school, even stooping so low as to plagiarize the conclusion of a novel by Balzac. One wonders if Antoine is really a French child, since Balzac is regarded almost as highly as Napoleon in France (and Napoleon is just below God), and any teacher would have recognized the theft.

Antoine ultimately makes the mistake of stealing a typewriter. He and a friend try to get an adult to pawn the machine and split the proceeds, but things go awry. When Antoine is unable to get money for the typewriter, he tries to return it and is caught.

Antoine's mother takes him to the police station, where she is questioned by the Chief of Police. The Chief aska accusingly if Antoine's mother and father both work outside the home, apparently a heinous crime in France.

Both my parents worked in 1959, when the film was made, and I didn't turn out so badly. Of course, I was living in Spokane, Washington, a remarkable backwater, rather than Paris with all its attractions, so you have to make allowances.

SPOILER!

Anyway, Antoine is placed in a cell. Later, Antoine and his mother face a judge, who sentences him to a prison for juvenile delinquents. He escapes, and here the film ends.

The ending makes no sense unless you know that Truffaut made four additional films about the Antoine character over the years, something the original film viewers could not have understood.

Like "Citizen Kane", another landmark film, the innovations are difficult to separate from the story. It's like a woman I know who told me of a student in her college literature class who complained, "I don't know why everyone says Shakespeare is so great. He only wrote in cliches."

For Americans, it's interesting to see the difference between our two cultures. Early in the film, the eighth-grade (or French equivalent) teacher writes a paragraph on the board about a rabbit. In it, the rabbit tells how his mistress loves and cuddles him. The French boys (its an all male class) know what a mistress really is in the human world, and react accordingly. I doubt if any student in a U.S. eighth-grade classroom could have defined the word "mistress" in 1959.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Most Powerful Films of All Time
Review: Often one wonders whether film is nessicary, whether one can tell a better and more absorbing story through writing.

400 Blows is the film for me that shows just how absorbant a film can be, just how a film can take the viewer inside a world and feel more real than a book.

This film is still as fresh and revolutionary and sad as it was when it premiered at Cannes in the 60's and changed the world of cinema forever.

Rating:
Summary: 5 trillion stars
Review: Parents didn't love their sons in 1959, and many don't now. The hurt felt by the boys and the tragic effects on their lives haven't changed a bit. Amazing film.

Rating:
Summary: The quintessential film of the New Wave
Review: Since the first images you stan by literally caught by the huge poetry who emerges. The sad opening theme with a cloudy Paris as frame gives us a striking clue about the film explores.
With the amazing exception of Forbidden games (Rene Clement) never before a movie had drown in the child's universe like these two films.
Truffaut is far from making a statement. His camera simply spies the emotive familiar nucleus of this nice guy and the terrible troubles generated by his own parents.
We laugh, and cry with the disventures and irreverent madness made outschool. The portrait of Balzac burning is a high point in the picture. It's a long journey in the world of this child that well might be you and me if...
The plot is very organilcal, and the final sequence is brethtaking.
Hopeless and a sense of desperation seems surrounding us when you watch by the last time to our youn boy.
Forget about all the films that followed to this one in the New Wave, like Breathless, les cousins, or Jules and Jim of Truffaut also.
This is the gem of the New Wave cinema.
In memory of the great Andre Bazin, the creator of the Cahiers du cinema.
A must for everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Another great Criterion release
Review: This is a review for the Criterion Collection version.

This is a great film and Truffaut based it loosely on his childhood. It's populatity also spawned numerous sequels.

The film follows Antoine Doniel, a boy about 12 years old as he gets into trouble at school, with his parents and the law. The acting is good and

The restoration of the film quality is also quite good and the acting is also very good.

This edition remains out of print but was reissued in the "Adventures of Antione Doniel" box set.

Rating:
Summary: Visually Stunning
Review: This is Truffauts debut film about a boy who cant seem to get out (he cant get away with his mischiefs)and stay out of trouble.Some people said the Antoine Doinel character is rebellious because of his parent's abuse (which is partly true) but we should not forget that there are a few scenes when his parents tried hard to understand and be nice to him (yes even the mother,not only to prevent him to spill the beans about her infidelity,she just tried).The movie is not slow at all with a lot of funny and tender scenes.Its somewhat reminded me a bit about my childhood.The story started to get a little sad near the end,but it didnt made it boring.This movie also boasts great cinematography,ive never seen France so beautifully photographed.Wait for that very famous freeze frame,zoom in the end.