deschreiber

What a surprise! I started watching, not expecting very much, thinking that I'd be turning it off at any time, but it held my attention for the full two hours. The opening scene I thought was going to mean a comedy was on its way, but what followed, while nothing like a tragedy, was something much more complicated. The storyline is odd, and the way characters treat each other is odd, too, and I think it was that oddness as much as anything else that kept me watching, as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing and hearing. Your emotions are played with as you watch the struggles of a rough-edged woman barely getting by in a small town in rural Quebec, usually sympathizing with her but more than once wanting to shake her for her bad choices. The acting is first-rate, with lots of close-ups of the characters -- the woman and her young daughter, who are the focus of everything -- undergo intense emotions.

Apparently this film had a great impact in its time, being something radically new in depicting the harsh side of everyday life in France. In England at about the same time, live theatre took the same turn with new "kitchen sink" plays. So 400 Blows has historical importance in that it was the start of a new kind of French film, and that in turn had an influence beyond France. Serioua students of cinema are excited about the historical mark it made.

But what about now? What does it offer an audience of our time, some 75 years later, other than as a museum piece? I wasn't able to find nearly enough interest in it to support the universal praise and excitement evident in all the comments here on IMDB. I found it mildly interesting at first but dreary and verging on the dull as it went on. There are so many much better films that know how to depict the rawness of life while leavening it with touches of humour, if perhaps sardonic, and eliciting a wider range of emotions in the audience. Three cheers for Truffaut for breaking the mould in his day, but perhaps it's time to quit imagining it's one of the greatest films ever made.

It's fun to see Maggie Smith in the first feature film for which she received credit, even though her part called for little of her considerable acting talents. But the rest of the film, despite its attempts to juice up the intensity with lots of unexpected turns in the plot, generated less than the bare minimum of excitement. George Nader is a good-looking man, but acting is not his forte. He managed to find virtually nothing to express in his character other than static poses, as if for a glossy magazine. There were moments when he ought to have appeared breathless and panicky, as during his escape, desperate and vulnerable, as when he threw himself on the mercy of Maggie Smith, or tender and grateful, as when Maggie Smith committed herself to him. But none of that registered even for a moment on his impassive face, and the result was that you had no involvement in his fate, not particularly caring whether he succeeds or fails at any of the many moments of crisis he faces.