All-time classic of the French New Wave that set the tone for a movement that championed personal films and visions informed by all-consuming study of cinema, with equal appreciation for both “high” and “low” art. You can’t get more personal than autobiography, which is what Les Quatre cents coups (or The 400 Blows) is. Its story of a young free spirit under the boot heel of teachers and parents and who eventually rebels his way into reform school is director Francois Truffaut’s own story. It was Truffaut’s first feature film and he makes it like it could be his last. It’s raw and uncompromising, a story that its creator needed to tell before he can move on. With a fine cinematic eye, he gives us the grimy side of Paris. Small, dank apartments. Rundown schools. Drab city streets that hold excitement only because they’re places where one can run away. Like any good writer, Truffaut also takes care to humanize all sides. There are no “villains” here. The hateful teacher has a compassionate side. The dull parents feel unsatisfied themselves and wrestle with their own dramas. Main character Antoine Doinel (Truffaut’s alter ego) is likewise flawed. Like most any kid, he’s inarticulate and he makes self-destructive decisions. He’s still finding himself—and is not yet even close.
Truffaut would chronicle the life of Antoine Doinel in four more films produced over the next twenty years.