Day 6 - The 400 Blows

Film # 6 - The 400 Blows (1959)

It has been a few days of missing posts but that doesn't mean that I haven't been keeping up with my 30 days of cinema plan. I have watched four more films in the last three days and the best of them has been The 400 Blows. Directed by Francois Truffaut, this "new-wave" mainstay is beautiful visually, touching emotionally and yet very unsentimental.

The 400 Blows refers to the trials (literally, "hell raising") of a young adolescent boy, Antoine, living in Paris in the '50s with his mother and step-father, who view him as a problem child. In school he is similarly hounded. In trying to cope with such difficulties the boy rebels and is sent to live in a juvenile corrections center from where he manages to escape. That is the story. So what is it about? It is about the how the neglect of parents and teachers, the adults, of the needs and talents of a boy forces him to find his own path in life. Of course, he becomes an outcast but that is just his way of dealing with the neglectful reality.

The style of the film is the unsentimental capturing of Antoine's progressive transgressions and punishments. The director focuses on the comedic aspects of schooldays and the impressions of the adolescents regarding their teachers and parents. The boys are resourceful and know how to keep themselves amused and happy even in the face of abuse. The details of their childish rebellion and rule-breaking are shown in all the romantic, nostalgic glory they deserve. The parents are appropriately aloof and caught up in their own affairs, literally so in the case of the mother. While they might try to help the child, their commitment is lacking and insufficient. 

Of course, the child has to find a way to survive on a day to day basis. Yet, as a viewer you expect or hope that the early lapses are just growing pains, that Antoine and his parents will find a way to fix the kid, that he will manage to get through. That hope doesn't materializes as his supposed sins or crimes become more heavy, so that he becomes the problem and also the property of the vastly more impersonal state. Neglect from the parents, abuse from the teachers, lead finally to the active punishment by the state. What is a boy, a child to do in such circumstances? How does this particular boy react to such reality? As a viewer, you sympathize with the child, obviously and hope he gets by okay. The ending seems to suggests that he might just be the lucky one who does get by, somehow. 

One of the best so far in my cinema journey.