The 400 blows : a peek into an young mind.

I can't remember watching a French film which didn't deal with some aspect of romantic relationships. Francois Truffaut's "the 400 blows" is quite an exception to this. The film depicts the struggle of an adolescent mind in the simplest way possible. To quote Wikipedia "The English title is a straight translation of the French but misses its meaning, as the French title refers to the idiom "faire les quatre cents coups", which means "to raise hell". This film shows us how sensitive an young mind can be and how often parents forget this simple fact.

I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not at all interested in anything in between.

          --  Francois Truffaut

"the 400 blows", being inspired by Truffaut's own life depicts the agony. Young Antoine, the protagonist of the film, is disliked by his teachers, his mother doesn't quite like him and his step dad doesn't have a lot of expectations from him. His only companion is his best friend Rene. The director very aptly uses this friendship to depict some of his key ideas. Although Rene belongs to a rich family he is also a neglected child. His parents are busy with their clubs and parties whereas Antoine's parents are busy with their work. Truffaut rightly shows how important parental care is in bringing up a child.
An adolescent boy needs proper guidance. All adolescent minds are rebellious by nature. The film shows how parental negligence can turn that rebel into a disoriented mind.There is a scene where Antoine and Rene are planning to steal a typewriter from Antoine's dad's office. This scene is shot in a theatre where kids of age 4-5 are watching a puppet show. The camera pans across all the innocent faces in the audience and then focus on Antoine and Rene who are busy deciding how they can hock the typewriter. The camera again  pans across the audience to depict the innocence of the kids. I think with this scene the director subtly shows how society can destroy a child's innocence.

The film brilliantly captures the struggle that Antoine faces within himself. He is in search of something where he can find happiness. Antoine is caught when he tries to return the stolen typewriter. His step-dad sees this as an opportunity to straighten him and sends him to a juvenile observation centre. At the observation centre he tells the psychiatrist his true feelings. This is the only time he opens up. The feelings are of a neglected child who is disgusted by being misunderstood by most people. 

The last scene of the film is surely one of the best scenes ever shot in the history of world cinema. Antoine manages to escape the centre and he runs continuously and at last reaches the sea shore. This the first time he witnesses the vastness of a sea. But he doesn't know where to run anymore. He turns back and the camera zooms into Antoine. The movie ends there. His expression speaks a thousand words.Antoine had naively hoped that he can run away from all the miseries of his life. But after running into the sea he understands that he cannot escape the grim realities of this life. He has to face them, only something as vast as the sea (I think the sea metaphorises death in some way here) can relive him from his pains and miseries. His expression is a perfect blend of  the realisation of the fact that he cannot escape reality and the fear of the uncertain future that awaits him.