(Directed by Francois Truffaut)
by Kevin Murphy
The 1959 Paris winter was cold, windy and long. Weather records indicate the temperature did not reach 50 degrees until the end of April. It was a fine time for coat sellers, but a haggard season for the city’s runaways.
I did my share of sneaking from my bedroom window as a kid, but never to the point where I was on the cold city streets stealing milk and making sure my collar kept me warm. Throughout this movie, though, I was left shaking my head with identification and wonder. Like a perfectly condensed short story in which the characters and situations all resonate with equal clarity, this movie has the power to speak the impenetrable language of recognition. The recognition speaks of youth’s triumph and defeat; the universal language experienced by all.
Antoine Doniel (Jean Pierre Leaud), this movie’s enfant terrible, experiences the trappings and solitary misadventures of a boy growing up much too fast. As a French adolescent he is charming, mendacious, stoked with guile and quick on his feet. He embodies the conflicted environment in France after the Second World War, an environment boiling with an energetic restlessness and anxiety.
For a time, his life is normal. He lives with his parents in a cramped Parisian apartment, eating fish stew and reading Balzac. At school his teacher, whom he provokes enthusiastically, returns the favor with vitriol and punishment, keeping Doniel while his classmates enjoy recess. Of his classmates, Doniel’s got his go-to-guy, Rene, and together they blossom from boyish pranksters to petty thieves.
This foray into thievery results from weeks of tension at home and in school. At home, Doniel’s mother, a disaffected bombshell with curves, steadily jabs her son with pointed complaints and criticisms. The man in her life, Doniel’s stand-in father, is decent enough to help raise the boy, but his buffoonery and ineptitude mark him as the consummate failure. Doniel’s mother would prefer the life of a spoiled trophy wife. She is not destined for such pleasures, though, and her bitterness is the fierce element disassembling her family. Both she and her husband plow their frustrations into the already vulnerable Doniel. When these circumstances mount, and Doniel plays hooky from school, he chooses to excuse his truancy by saying his mother has died. For a day this grants the boy some sympathy, but soon the truth is exposed, and in the wake Doniel is forced to run away from his school and his home.
Along the way Doniel’s contradictory character is defined through a complex arrangement of situations that strive to depict in individual scenes what it is like to pass from innocent boy to juvenile delinquent. Before he runs away, as the camera swoons across the gritty Paris landscape, a fable-like soundtrack underscores the camaraderie and exploration of youth, bringing with it a certain nostalgia for times now gone. After school Doniel and Rene goof along the cobblestone streets, past the cafes and florists, and head home for supper, chores, and homework. When they split, they shake hands like men, splintering their bond for another night with the family.
But an empty apartment often waits for Doniel. And it’s here that the numerous pressures and influences affecting his character become evident. As he struts around the place, setting the table for supper, stealing money from the bureau and combing his hair at his mother’s vanity table, he is at once responsible, deceptive and young, perfectly capturing the blend of a boy pulled in different directions.
It is only later, when the boys are reunited, that their transformation becomes obvious. One day they decide to take in a puppet show. They sit in the crowd with hundreds of younger, enthralled children. While the kids gasp and shiver and laugh and sigh, Doniel and Rene discuss ways to pawn typewriters. Their hushed, plotting dialogue, set against the innocent entertainment of the children, marks the boys departure towards delinquency.
And it’s in their delinquency that you’ll find most of this movie’s fun. ‘The 400 Blows,’ is an associated translation from the original French title ‘Les Quatre Cents Coups,’ initially slated to be released in English as ‘Wild Oats.’ It seems working the concept of sowing some wild oats against the more depressing concerns of punishment and desperation are a conscious thematic choice for this tale.
(After all, that’s really what this movie is. A common tale of troubled youth made more difficult by the pesky interference of adults and authority.)
The director, Francois Truffaut, admitted the plot was largely autobiographical. In his own youth, Truffaut was a hell-raiser whose soul was saved by cinema. This is his thanksgiving, then, a movie that celebrates the rambunctious attitudes of youth by using classical and innovative themes as a means to reach a wide, receptive audience (He won the 1959 Cannes award for Best Director.)
Truffaut’s philosophy of improvisation, celebration, and reflection pits the freedom of youth against the ugly corruption of adulthood. Long, still scenes highlight the movie like snapshots from distant times. Quick, blinking shots of Paris embolden the poetry of everyday life and instill a feeling of timelessness. The messages resound loudest when Doniel does his best to not act, and Truffaut does his best to not direct. If a natural, inspired account of a hellion’s time in Paris is considered in these terms, ‘The 400 Blows’ works like a documentary; a true to life tale about a fictional character that is based on a real person’s life.
Later in the movie Doniel is arrested for stealing a typewriter. On his way to the police station, he is overcome with gratitude and grief. He cries the tears of a boy who understands that his childhood is over and nothing will ever be the same. From the back of the police van Doniel watches the city streets unwind into an untouchable canvass. He looks depressed, sorry and alone, so much that you might think his wild, remorseless days are numbered.
Once he’s off the streets, though, Doniel begins another transformation. He’s been confined to an observation camp and adopts the hardened, excuseless model of the accepting prisoner. He is remote, disciplined and reserved. But just when you think Doniel will serve his time and chew the lessons learned, the incendiary, brutal charm of his rebellion sparks within and he breaks free from the observation camp.
As Doniel flees along the French countryside, the camera trails him with a long, steady gaze. The sound is dropped so all we hear are footsteps and breathing. The scene has a meditative quality that suddenly grows suspenseful.
After a couple minutes, the countryside opens to the beach and Doniel reaches the sea. This is his first time seeing it, but the pain of realizing he’s got no place left to run ruins his accomplishment and turns it into a fresh, bittersweet disappointment. It is a compelling metaphor and an apt conclusion to a movie that charts the difficult and cherished period in this boy’s young life.
