The 400 Blows

“The 400 Blows” is a french new wave film about a troubled, misunderstood, young boy growing up in 1950s France. Dionel Antione is an interesting character who longs to leave his miserable life behind for something bigger and better. His parents are a big part of the problem he misbehaves in the film. During this time France was still recovering from World War Two and the poverty and troubles the people face are expressed through the setting of the film and the different settings of different scenes. The setting, the story, the characters, and the soundtrack all reinforce the movie’s sad and dark overtone. There is also an overlying sexual theme of the film that almost makes the viewer uncomfortable.

The first thing I would like to talk about is Daniel Antione as a character. Daniel is mature, misunderstood, and longs for things beyond living in poverty in Paris. The reason I say he is mature is that he always doing things kids his age don’t usually do. In one of the first scenes of the movie he gets home and sits down in grooming, chair surrounded my mirrors, comes his hair, and shaves his face. The whole shot is very quick but during this time slow guitar starts playing and that specific soundtrack leads you to believe what the character is doing is a meaningful action. He also is constantly mentioning how he longs to join the military, I believe because he needs to escape this town and that’s his best chance to see the world. The reason I say he is misunderstood is that, while he is constantly causing trouble and misbehaving he is a very intelligent kid. He is misunderstood because everyone blames him for his actions, but his living situation is horrible. His parents treat him like nothing more than a nuisance and at the end of the film basically abandon him. This is a fairly disturbing film, but for me, the most disturbing scene is when his mother switches her whole personality after he catches her cheating. She bathes him, tucks him into bed, but then she begins to talk to him. The shot of her speaking is a POV shot from Daniel’s POV looking up at her from the bed. The shot makes you feel uncomfortable because while she is saying all these nice things to him, the way the shot is focused on her face is so awkward that it makes the words she’s saying sound very peculiar. Then when she mentions giving money to Daniel the scene turns straight creepy because it feels as though she is trying to bribe him to get him to not tell his father he saw her cheating. The reason Daniel yearns for more is that he has so little. He lives in a horribly poor apartment with parents who don’t care about him and just want to get out even if it means joining the military.

The way the setting adds to the dark sad overtone of the film is through the long lingering shots with no dialogue. A perfect example of this is when Daniel goes to take the trash out and there are no words being said, it’s just a long shot of him taking the trash down the disgusting stairs, inside this gross small apartment, and into the worlds dirtiest garbage can. Later in the scene, he goes to bed and he sleeps in a sleeping bag on the couch. He sleeps in a sleeping bag instead of sheets because it’s warmer. This is a perfect example of how families lived in post-war France. Another example of this is the first time Daniel runs away and there are long shots of him walking around with posters plastered everywhere, hinting that the country isn’t in a great spot. Also, everywhere he was walking was disgusting and impoverished. The majority of this scene also had a sad slow soundtrack behind it.

the most interesting scene in the movie to me is the scene where Daniel and his friend ditch school Daniel goes on the old school gravitron carnival ride. This shot is interesting because of its camera work and symbolism. in the scene, the ride starts and the camera is from the POV of onlookers of the right and its a still shot as the people spin in and out of frame on the ride. It then closes up and daniel who lifts his feet fro the floor and begins doing more spins in mid-air. The shot then switches to a still shot from Daniel’s POV watching the people look at hi spin around and around. This scene actually made me disoriented and that hasn’t happened to me while watching a film in a very long time. The camera keeps switching back and forth between shots and the camera itself isn’t moving in either angle, but everything around it is. The symbolism behind it to me is this day of skipping school is Daniel’s own escape from his horribly sad life. He feels like he’s flying and he loves that feeling because he wishes he could fly right out of France.