Thursday 19 April 2012

Travels With My Film Life: Paris 1959 "Les Quatre Cent Coups"

Alors! Here we be, The Old Man and myself... in these gritty, smoky old streets of Paris. I do bring The Old Man here because he adores a bit of a Truffaut film. But amazingly he has never partaken of "The 400 Blows".

So we do watch 12 year old Antoine Doinel racket around the streets of Paris, skiving off school, sneaking into cinemas, getting hell from his parents, bein' a runaway... trying to steal a typewriter for heavens' sake.... getting nicked. Aaah poor Antoine.

The Old Man do not as I expect react with full enthusiasm. He do seem in fact... puzzled by the film.

Me? I do love it. I could see "400 Blows" 400 times. I can smell those streets.. I do know that Antoine don't wash much. Poor Antoine... he don't know what to do with himself. He do only want to "raise hell" a little...
Did you know that "Raising Hell" is the meaning of the phrase "faire les 400 coups"? Me neither.
You can find the trailer here on YouTube.

No comments: