'The 400 Blows' review

“The 400 Blows” is a black and white 1959 film by Francois Truffaut, about adolescence and how a child’s life and the decisions that they make can affect it. The child, Antoine Doinel, begins the film by getting in trouble with his school teacher and is punished. When he goes home, his life and behavior there is not better than it is at school. His behavior becomes so reckless, that his parents eventually send him to a juvenile detention, which he later escapes and runs away from.

Although the film does not have an exact, straight-to-the-point plot, it is like looking at a photo album. The viewer is allowed glimpses into the life of a young boy, who appears to be a troublemaker and disobedient, though we do not know why he commits the things he does. These short flickers of his life are not all bad, but there are some nice, peaceful moments that Doinel experiences. When he and his classmate skip school and run around Paris, they are happy with each other and fear nothing. In that moment, they are children. Truffaut captures their adventures as small boys who are sometimes naughty, but are still naive. Their playful adventure gave them a sense of innocence that the viewer might have thought did not exist, because of what trouble they caused earlier in the film. Their innocence and fun is broken when Doinel sees his mother being romantic with another man. They are both caught in their misconduct and their innocence is lost.

The only true time that Doinel regains a bit of his innocence is when his father brings him to the police station and he spends the night there. He is behind bars and locked up, left behind by his parents and he is faced to accept his misdemeanors. The moment is quiet when he rolls up a cigarette in his jail cell. Scenes that are silent or lack a lot of sound have much more meaning than others, because silence says so much. In the juvenile detention, when he escapes and comes to a stop at the ocean, it is not only quiet but he is alone. A major theme in the film is alienation, in which the main character, Doinel, is alone mostly towards the end of the film. He tends to have a friend to assist him with everything throughout the film, so he is not alone, but he is lonely. It is him against everyone else, specifically adult, older figures in his life. They tell him what to do and how to behave, but like a scratch he cannot help but itch, he has to do something drastic to defy them. These adult figures are obstacles that stand in his way, and he can usually get past them, but it is until he reaches the ocean at the end of the film, that he is unable to get past this obstacle, or border. He is lost again, as he looks at the camera in a freeze-frame shot, perhaps, asking for help.

A photo album allows for someone to know what is going on in the picture, but they cannot understand what is going on behind it. Doinel might have avoided his childhood in order to try to grow up too quickly. He did things that many young children would not do. However, because he is easily persuaded, he tries to be a good son and student to be in good spirits with his family and school. He tries to be a child again, but when it backfires, he goes back to being mischievous. When innocence is lost, it is hard to find again, and at most times refuses to come out of its hiding spot.