THE 400 BLOWS - A Quest for Freedom

François Truffaut's first full-length film and also his semi-autobiography, The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups), released in 1959 is a landmark film of the French New Wave.

Truffaut spent the initial years of his film career as a critic, writing for the famous French film journal, Cahiers du Cinema. Writing about films and being in contact with one of the greatest critics, André Bazin the foundation on which Truffaut stood was rock solid. Somehow, when the film was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival (1959), it did not receive the appreciation and acknowledgement it does today. One of the reasons being how young he was to have made a film and how he used to bash the old and seasoned French filmmakers in his critiques for promoting traditional filmmaking methods.

Gradually, the film received the appreciation it deserved. It was identified to be unique in its own way and a success of the unconventional style of filmmaking which resonated with the French New Wave.

The film is about a 12-year-old kid Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), who is treated as a pariah by his teachers, his self-absorbed mother (Claire Maurier) and a doltish yet diverting father (Albert Rémy). His parents, who are unable to cope with Antoine's behaviour, put him in a correctional institute. 

The film opens with a sequence of tracking shots of the Eiffel Tower through the streets of Paris. Well, this is not the first shot but actually the entire opening credit sequence. I believe, this opening sequence compliments the rest of the film and deserves to be treated accordingly as it in itself makes an interesting subject. It precisely is how one would look for the Tower if visiting the city for the first time. The freedom Antoine craves for is verbatim to freedom that the movement in the opening shots suggest. It almost feels like a view through a child's eyes.

The language of the film has an unforced and spontaneous flow to it, which was a result of Truffaut's unwillingness to become a member of the herd. The first half of the film does have a reflection of other famous French filmmakers like Renoir and Becker (I do not imply Jean Renoir and Jacques Becker as members of said herd). It is the next half of the film that brings out its individuality and the brilliance of Truffaut. While making 'The 400 Blows' Truffaut has used an amalgamation of the techniques that were used not only in cinema but also television.

The film has several bijou instances such as Antoine wiping his hands off with the curtain, hiding his savings and trying his mother's makeups which instantly takes the audience (the mischievous ones) back to their own childhood.

Antoine after attempting to run away several times and trying to make money by selling a typewriter he stole from his father's office gets finally caught. His father, who is jaded by his son's devilment sends him to a correctional institute. 

In a scene where a photographer takes mugshots of Antoine, Truffaut has used a freeze of barely a few seconds. As if the director is trying to suggest the permanence of the event and a full stop to Antoine's quest for freedom.

At the correctional institute Antoine is shown being questioned by a psychologist. Truffaut did not use dialogues that the boy could have memorized from the script, rather the questions were made and asked from him on spot while the camera was rolling. The boy answered all the questions spontaneously. Meanwhile, the particular expressions that appear on his face were pure and true which would have been almost impossible if Truffaut were to use the traditional practices. As Satyajit Ray says in his books, "a major goal of all dialogue in a film: making a character come alive."  

The last scene of the film and probably the most famous one shows Antoine running away from the institute through a village towards the sea. He believes that the sea he had heard about, if he could reach would bring an end to all his problems. The camera tracks him until he reaches the edge of the sea. Then it stops. There is nowhere Antoine could run anymore. After looking around for a while he turns towards the camera and starts walking in the direction of the viewers, this is when the shot suddenly freezes. The film ends with Antoine caught mid-run looking towards the audience. The impact of the use of freeze to end the film is uncanny. The way he looks towards the audience is unsettling as if he is blaming us, the society for the situation he is in.