Poison Film Review | "Four Hundred Blows": Childhood Sorrows

New Wave cinema refers to a new trend in filmmaking that emerged in France from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. Many of the leading figures in this wave are french film critics of the Film Handbook, the most famous of which are Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Houmai and Jacques Rivette. These filmmakers advocate the personal style of film, like handheld photography, pay attention to live-action shooting and realistic style. The endings of films are often open-ended, most notably the stop-motion shot at the end of Four Hundred Strikes, a close-up of a young but dazed face. What the future fate of the young protagonist will be is difficult to predict.

The long shot at the end of the film is also very impressive, a teenager who escaped from the juvenile detention center has been running, and the camera has been following the teenager's footsteps through the countryside and jungle until the endless seashore, and then the teenager turns around, and then has that eternal freeze frame, the whole process is a few minutes long. Why deliberately follow the process of running with teenagers? Some people say that they want to show the ecstasy of teenagers running to freedom, but I don't think so. Anthony only escaped from a cage temporarily. Although he ran hard and kept struggling, what happened next? He's only 12 years old, and if he doesn't have parents to rely on, if he doesn't have a formal education, what can he do next? And how to survive? Although he experienced the excitement of a brief escape, he was still suspicious and confused at the moment of turning. He doesn't know where his future lies? And where is true happiness?

The name of the movie "Four Hundred Blows" comes from the French proverb "Four Hundred Hits", which means that it is necessary to hit a naughty child 400 times, and it is impossible to know its meaning without special understanding. In fact, the protagonist of this movie, Anthony, in my opinion, is not a particularly naughty teenager at all. At home, his parents still have majesty for him. Every night he would obey his mother's orders to take out the garbage and then obediently sleep on his own. It's just that his academic performance is not ideal, his parents are too rude and less loving to him, and the school teachers are too rigid and strict, which causes him to skip school and gradually get off the right track of life.

There is one particularly nice detail in the movie. It was when Anthony and his partner skipped class and wandered the streets of Paris, when they accidentally bumped into his mother and others cheating, but he pretended not to see his mother and left quickly. That night his mother passed by his bedside, and he pretended to be asleep and did not know that his mother had returned. From such details, we can know that Anthony is by no means a particularly ignorant child who only knows how to fool around. He cherished his little family, and he didn't want his parents to break up because of this. Therefore, he did not want to tell his father and mother to steal, nor did he want to tell his mother about it. But because of the brutal treatment of him by the school teachers who then abruptly suspended classes, he began to live on the streets again, and in desperation, he stole his father's printer. Unable to do so, he was arrested while preparing to return the printer. The entire film does not have a particularly central event, focusing on the various states of young Anthony at home, school, on the street, and in juvenile detention centers. The director hopes that the audience can actively follow Anthony and feel and think about his life.

Childhood is not always pleasant, because children always have difficulty controlling their own destiny, and the words and deeds of adults have an incomparably powerful influence on children. The attention and love of parents is the warm first sun, and the departure and indifference of parents are cold nights. It was particularly sad that he was taken to the juvenile detention center alone, and what was even more chilling was the desperate words his mother said when she went to the juvenile detention center to see him. In the movie, Anthony has too few warm moments with his family, and what impresses him is the happy way he went to the movies with his parents.

Objectively speaking, Anthony's childhood life is by no means a particularly cruel kind. A quarrelsome but rarely warm family, a rough teacher, a repressive educational environment, an injured and helpless situation may be a situation that many troubled children have encountered. From Anthony's body, the audience may be able to tap into more resonant things, which also makes the film more realistic and educational, especially worthy of deep consideration by parents and educators.

It is said that the film is of the nature of director Truffaut's childhood autobiography, he himself had an unfortunate childhood, and his mentor Andrei Bazin took him away from the juvenile detention center. André Bazin is a well-known figure in the history of French cinema and is considered the "spiritual father" of French New Wave cinema. It was under his cultivation that Truffaut became a leading figure in New Wave cinema. This is the reason why the movie "Four Hundred Blows" pays tribute to Andre Bazin at the beginning of the film.

Four Hundred Blows was the first of Truffaut's "Anthony films" and won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959, marking the official recognition of the "New Wave" work. Later, anthony's life course about the growth, love, marriage and divorce of Antoine was also made into a movie by Truffaut, namely "Antoine and Camelot", "Stealing Kisses", "Bedtime Storm" and "Love Rush".

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