duminică, 25 martie 2018

Les Quatre Cents Coups aka The 400 Blows by Francois Truffaut


Les Quatre Cents Coups aka The 400 Blows by Francois Truffaut


This is one of the best motion pictures of all time, included on both The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and the All-TIME 100 Movies lists, which you can find here:


Furthermore, audiences have appreciated this film, which is also included on the Top Rated Movies list at number 202, to which we can add the nomination for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, BAFTA in the same category and Best Film from any Source and the Cannes Film Festival prize for Best Director.

The hero is a fourteen year old boy, Antoine Doinel portrayed with incredible, phenomenal talent by Jean-Pierre Leaud, who gets into a series of trouble, for which he takes often undeserved punishment- anyway exce4ssive and inappropriate, given the background.
He runs away from school, but that is what so many teenagers, pupils do and considering the violence, the abuse and use of corporal disciplining applied by professors it can seem only natural, to try and find an escape from such exploitation.

At one point, when his father, Julien Doinel, talks to a policeman, the latter encourages more “traditional” means of education, when the parent complains that he could not make his son behave and by old means, the commissioner understands beatings.
Besides, one day, when he is absent from school and walking the streets with his friend, Rene, Antoine comes across his mother, Gilberte Doinel, who is kissing another man and therefore offers an example of libertinism, contempt for rules, lack of discipline, breaking of barriers, offence to morality which she cannot later reproach in her son, who is after all much younger and much more prone to mistakes than an adult, who does not do what he or she preaches.

This immoral attitude of the mother surely explains in part the excuse used by the naughty Julien when he is interrogated on the reasons why he is so frequently missing from school by a teacher who, when hearing that the boy’s mother is dead, becomes compassionate.

However, this false pretense is soon exposed, the parents come to school and in their fury, they ask the teachers and the principal to impose serious consequences upon the insensitive boy, who is not only running from school, but also lying and saying his parent has departed forever…
Since coming home has never been a happy experience, with his parents fighting, the knowledge of his mother’s infidelities and their absurd demands on the child, especially in light of their own serious shortcomings and flaws, Antoine decides to run away from home and find a job eventually.

On the first night, he finds some refuge in a printing shop, amid all the disorder and the very loud noises made by the printing presses, but he makes a temporary armistice with his mother, who promises to give him a one thousand francs prize –probably about $ 30- if at the next test he will be among the best five students.
The hero reads from La Recherche de L’Absolu by Honore de Balzac, he would include the ending- Eureka, and the sentences about death- in his own paper regarding the death of his grandfather, a theme selected when the teacher asked them to write about an important event in their lives.

The morbid predilection for the excuse when he was absent and then as a subject for his test emphasizes the depression, disabuse, lack of affection, need for attention and acceptance experienced by the teenage boy, who is again banished from class, because of the accusation of plagiarism.
Furthermore, at home, while enthused, exhilarated by the magnificent author, Julien lights a candle in what looks like a small shrine dedicated to the deity- Honore de Balzac- and while he is eating with his parents, the father smells smoke and the small altar is in flames.

After this incendiary incident, the family is going to the motion pictures but it is alas a short-lived peace, followed by another escape and this time, the protagonist finds temporary shelter at the home of his friend, who also has family issues, his mother is a drunkard and his father is strange.
There is a life size horse in this house, evaluated by the father at about one million francs and even if the boys, trying to find ways to get some money think about selling the horse, they try with a typewriter and their effort to sell it in the black market, through a crook fail.

Antoine’s mother and father give up their obligations and take him to the authorities, stating that they have tried everything and it does not work, so they just feel he should be educated in other environments- even his mother makes a rather ridiculous, feeble attempt to ask the judge to send him in a home near the sea…
The official replies that the State Correction Facility is not a travel firm and it is not in the business of providing pleasure and comfort for its clients and the hero has to face a sentence for the attempted theft of the typewriter and the ten thousand francs he had stolen from his grandmother, in spite or because of his explanation that he knew where the money were and his old relative does not need it anyway- she will die soon.

Antoine Doinel has some sessions with an analyst, but it seems that the psychologist does not respect the quintessential rule of keeping the discussions secret and he talks to the police and probably the parents about what he learns from the discussions.
The 400 Blows is a historic, memorable, mesmerizing chef d’oeuvre.


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