Blog #5

The 400 Blows

Directed by Francois Truffaut

The French film, The 400 Blows, directed by Francois Truffaut displays the complex childhood of Antoine. Antoine lives in the city with his parents and goes to an all boys school where he is the “class clown”, naive, and struggles with disciplinary rules. Throughout the film, Antoine is constantly running away from his problems, sometimes created by him, other times they are influenced by his peers. But, overall the reason why Antoine has these problems is because he is neglected at home.

This film was new to me because I have never watched a foreign film and new to our class because we haven’t seen much when it comes to children as main characters. In the classic Hollywood era we saw adult couples or specific focus on adult characters. There was never much emphasis on adolescence. This film focuses solely on the issues Antoine faces throughout his childhood which was different and nice to see.

This film was centered around a dysfunctional family. The mother cheats on the husband and does not have a good relationship with her son or husband. The son is neglected; he barely has a safe space to sleep at night. When Antoine gets slapped across the face in one scene, it seemed so normalized at the time. The reason why he is troubled socially is due to his lack of parenting and the concept that the parents couldn’t raise their own child. He was always a hassle in their eyes, when he was just a kid wanting to experience life. I felt bad for Antoine in many instances, he just needed better guidance in his life. Antoine learned to be very independent at a young age which is scary for most kids; this was an interesting aspect of the film as well.