The 400 Blows (1959)

François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups) tells the story of a young French boy. His parents lead busy lives and don't have much time to notice him. The boy's teacher typecasts him as a troublemaker and his parents assume he'll forever be a failure. While the boy does does misbehave often, there are moments in the film when he genuinely tries to do a good job. Despite these efforts, he is still punished as these good intentions are interpreted as further misbehaving. While this film did not have very many particularly important events, I found the plot rather engaging.

The star of this film is played by 14-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud. While I generally despise child actors, particularly ones playing leads in the film, I found Léaud's performance to be quite impressive, perhaps the best of any child actor I've seen. There are several other important actors in this film, but Léaud's performance is the one that stands out most.

Stylistically, this film is a prominent example of the French New Wave and features several characteristic aspects of this movement. First, the film employs quite a few tracking shots. Some of the most memorable scenes in the film, including the famous ending, feature a camera on wheels tracking the movement of the actors. Furthermore, the films is mostly existential in nature. Rather than focusing on a particularly memorable series of events, the film takes a close look at the conditions of the existence of the main character.

Overall, I found this film rather enjoyable. Not only is the film's basic premise enjoyable, but the stylistic and thematic elements are equally worthwhile. For these reasons, the film is now regarded as a rather important film in the history of cinema. Based on what I have seen in this film and Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, I must say I find French New Wave films quite enjoyable. I would regard this film as slightly inferior to Breathless, but not by much. It is definitely worth seeing for those that have not yet seen it.

92/100
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