The 400 Blows [Criterion Collection]

"An internationally distinguished and influential film in the development of Nouvelle Vague cinema, and a personal favorite of filmmaker Francoise Truffaut, 400 Blows originally started out as a twenty-minute short ""Antoine Runs Away"" and was designed to be part of one of Truffaut's compilation films. With a plot largely taken from Truffaut's boyhood, it soon developed into a full- length feature and the beginning of a series of films objectively chronicling the coming-of-age of Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud, who played the same role in all of the cycle's films). Antoine has barely entered adolescence and has already known a lifetime of pain and loneliness. He has a mother, but she is too busy with her lovers and activities to pay much attention to the boy. His step-father occasionally makes minimal half-hearted efforts to pay attention to Antoine. Things might have been better at school, but Antoine hates his teacher and is a dreadful student. One day, he and his buddies play hooky and go to the local amusement park. They are questioned the next day and in a quiet panic, Antoine tells a big lie that is too quickly exposed, causing him to run away. He tries to go back home, but another problem at school ensues when the teacher accuses him of plagiarism and Antoine once again flees. In desperate need of cash, the troubled youth resorts to petty theft, something that lands him in great trouble and in the office of a prison psychiatrist. Eventually Antoine successfully escapes the facility and flees to the sea for the film's powerful end."