400 Blows

The 400 Blows was written and directed by French film director François Truffaut and uses many cinematic techniques to enhance its story line and overall delivery to the audience. The fact that the storyline originated from Truffaut’s own life is what interested me the most about this movie. It also shows how the way parents raise and treat their children can have a strong affect on their children and the type of person they grow into. Truffaut takes us on a journey through his childhood and intrigues us to empathize and feel the way he felt. He uses many close-ups and freeze shots on the main character, Antoine who was the actor posing as Truffaut. These close-ups and freeze shots force us to look at Antonine’s reactions through the images of his face and almost predict what he was feeling and how the actions of others should have made him feel. Since The 400 Blows was created and published during the French New Wave time period and displayed one of its many used concepts such as the antihero. Antoine can be directly correlated to the idea of antihero as he went against a numerous number of societal norms and behaviors. He was a rebel who was always did the opposite of what the typical perfect protagonist hero would be doing. My overall favorite aspect from this movie was the use of the ambiguous scene at the end. The camera goes alongside Antoine as he runs away from the reformatory and ends up alongside the beach. The camera zooms in on a frozen shot of Antoine and that’s the end. It creates a sort of open-ended question as to what the next event in his life ends up being. We do not know if he gets caught or builds a new life and can move on from his past suffering, but that’s the beauty in it. We the audience can decide what his fate turns into.