THE BLOWS (400 ) Movie Review

Les Quatre Cents Coups

The debate over just how autobiographical François Truffaut's first feature film really is has faded somewhat over the years, while its stature as one of the most influential of all films about childhood has continued to rise. The troubled, 13-year-old Antoine Doinel, played by an extraordinary young actor named Jean-Pierre Léaud, lives in a tiny Parisian apartment with his bickering, miserably unhappy parents. Antoine escapes through reading and through movies, but his need for attention leads him down a road of truancy, deceit, and petty crime that finally corners him—in one of the most powerful images in modern cinema—with literally no place to run. This heartbreaking final image of the film is typical of Henri Decae's cinematography; the camera freely but glamourlessly roams the streets of Paris, yet pulls off the rare feat of reinforcing the lead character's claustrophobia, even though the images are in a widescreen format. The impact of The 400 Blows in 1959 was enormous; Truffaut took the Best Director Award at Cannes and the his script even received an Oscar nomination—a rare occurrence for any foreign language film in the 1950s. More than the awards, however, the film's naturalistic and accessible qualities endeared it to American audiences, and Truffaut became—along with Fellini, Bergman, and perhaps Kurosawa—one of a handful of foreign directors whose names became familiar to American audiences beyond the strict boundaries of the art house. Forty years later. the film itself remains quite magnificent—a marvel of complexity disguised as the simplest and most straightforward of stories. (It was followed years later by a number of sequels, in which Léaud starred as the same character.)

NEXT STOP … Love at Twenty, Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board, Love on the Run

1959 97m/B FR Francois Truffaut, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Remy, Guy Decomble, Georges Flament, Patrick Auffay, Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jacques Demy, Robert Beauvais; D: Francois Truffaut; W: Francois Truffaut, Marcel Moussey; C: Henri Decae; M: Jean Constantin. Cannes Film Festival '59: Best Director (Truffaut); New York Rim Critics Awards '59: Best Foreign Film; Nominations: Academy Awards '59: Best Story & Screenplay. VHS, LV, Letterbox, DVD HMV, MRV, FOX