Antoine grows up

Last night, I watched François Truffaut's Stolen Kisses at the Seattle Art Museum, part of its Spring 2016 "Cinema de Paris" film series.  The film, released in 1968, is the third in Truffaut's cycle of five films following the life of Antoine Doinel -- the young protagonist Truffaut had introduced to the world nine years earlier in The 400 Blows.

Antoine, a troubled, adventurous, and somewhat sensitive 12-year-old (played by 14-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud) in The 400 Blows, is now a troubled, adventurous, and totally feckless young man of 21. 

The same actor -- Jean-Pierre Léaud -- plays the part of Antoine in each of the five films in the series, beginning with The 400 Blows in 1959 and ending with Love on the Run in 1979.  Truffaut's series was thus in some respects an early, abbreviated experiment of the kind done so well by Richard Linklater in his 2014 film Boyhood -- we watch the actor grow and mature in tandem with the character whom he portrays.

Truffaut was a great director, considered the father of the French New Wave cinema, and The 400 Blows is now considered one of the best movies ever made.  Both the director and his films have been reviewed and analyzed to death.  I'm not going to embarrass myself by trying to write a review -- just give you my quick impression.

In fact, although I've read allusions to The 400 Blows virtually my entire life, I shamefacedly admit that I had never seen the film.  But I so enjoyed watching Stolen Kisses last night that I watched The 400 Blows this afternoon, streaming it on my computer screen from Amazon (for only $3.99, no compensation received for this plug).

In Blows, Antoine and his best friend are shown "running wild" (the idiomatic meaning of the French title) in a frigid, black and white, mid-winter Paris -- the Paris that I expected to see, and actually did see, when I first visited it in 1961.  Antoine, despite his wildness, seems like a very nice young boy who has been raised by a couple who lack, as we'd now say, parenting skills.  Although reasonably intelligent (the story is somewhat autobiographical, after all!), he performs terribly at school.  He routinely plays hooky, he lies, he steals, and he ends up in a French version of reform school, where he is abandoned and disowned by his parents.  He escapes, runs all the way (in a protracted and beautifully filmed single-camera scene)  to the ocean he had always dreamed of seeing, wades into the water, and in an iconic conclusion turns back and stares at the camera, freeze-framed, with a bewildered expression.  "Fin." 

By the time of Stolen Kisses, Antoine is taller, thinner, still boyish, prone to quick visits to Parisian prostitutes, and seemingly unable to succeed at any career he attempts.  We first see him being dishonorably discharged from the Army for desertion, and quickly introduced to a job as a hotel clerk by his girl friend's father.  He botches that job, and goes on to botch one job after another-- a shoe store clerk, a novice private detective, and a TV repairman.  As his employers generally admit, he works hard and means well, but they haven't the patience to tolerate his mistakes.

Blows, while amusing at times, was black and white, and suffused with preadolescent angst.  Stolen Kisses is filmed in color, is funny throughout, comes close to slapstick at times, and takes full advantage of the humor traditionally found in misunderstandings between lovers.  The 400 Blows ends with Antoine's gazing blankly at the camera -- he sees no future, he is only one step ahead of being found, beaten, and returned to reform school, and he may or may not be considering suicide.  Stolen Kisses ends with the boy getting his girl, and with marriage in the offing -- despite the fact that the question of what he will do with his life and how he will ever support a family is no closer to being answered than at the beginning of the movie.

But the humor is irresistible -- in a Stan Laurel-ish sort of way -- and the background scenes of  modern Paris are striking enough to draw your attention away from the subtitles.  Antoine as an adult is a lovable doofus, and I enjoyed watching his often comic misadventures. 

But it's The 400 Blows that can break your heart.