400 blows

The 400 blows follows the life of a young teenager named Antione in France. The film while physically being confined to locations in France takes us to many diverse locations from Antione shifting through the urban sprawl of Paris to engaging in a soccer game and suddenly escaping to the beach. As pointed out in Insdorf’s essay on the film “The 400 Blows: close to home” The inability for Antione to stay out of trouble is a honest reflection of how the director wished to display the time of youth, instead of relying on the nostalgic innocence that often characteristically associated with movies surrounding youth the movie explores the themes of dysfunctional family systems as shown by Antione’s biological father being out of the picture and what is left is his mother who does not get along with his spouse and is caught cheating by Antione. Besides from dysfunctional family systems other aspects of adolescence that have a less wholesome outlook are also explored such as Antione’s subtle sighs of awakening to his sexuality as displayed by his interest in his moms make up and stockings (Insdorf, 2014).

The defining feature of Antione and the film at large is what is expressed without words. We follow Antione while he seemingly acts out of simple rebellion towards all aspects of authority but the interest in his character is most defiantly sparked if not heightened when we see his powerful motivations surrounding getting to a beach he saw in a commercial. For a character that is exhibited as impulsive it is intriguing to see a young boy captured by such a vague concept without much discussion or dialogue about the actual place that has become the locus of his desires. The most profound moment in the movie is when Antione arrives at the beach he sought after for much of the film and what is shown is an undefined expression that encapsulates the entire film. With Antione’s life being so heavily defined by his impulsive actions that seem to harbor no actual goal when Antione is faced with the grand destination of his desire he is simply at a lost for words or any emotion that is familiar to him.