Film · 1959 · Drama
The 400 Blows
Directed by Francois Truffaut
1959
France
★ 8.6 editorial score
The French New Wave announces itself: Truffaut put his own miserable childhood on screen at twenty-seven, and the last shot changed what an ending was allowed to do.
“"The 400 Blows"...ultimately boils down to the film's trendsetting coda, perhaps the most exclamatory question mark in movies. A mischievous but misunderstood adolescent boy, having run for about three or four languorous minutes of screen time, reaches a beach and dips his foot into the waves of low tide. He halts, looks around, about-faces, and momentarily looks into the camera. Freeze. Zoom. Fin.”
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