françois truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS (1959) / ANTOINE ET COLETTE (1962)

i was fortunate enough to make it to nashville for a banner day in the Belcourt's "Fifty Years Of Janus Films" series, beginning with a double feature of 400 Blows and its first sequel, a short piece from an international anthology film. i feel self-conscious trying to think of anything to say about a film of Blows' magnitude, so i'll just say that it is indeed one of the more poignant looks at youth i've seen on film. Antoine Doinel is a thief and a liar, but what child isn't, at least to some degree? he's still a creature of dignity. (watch him skip school and return home for the evening, only to run away from home the next night and return to school in the morning! he's willing to give anything a try.) we love Antoine even as his behavior worsens, and his fate is mildly devastating.

but is it? we catch up with Antoine (and, as a pleasant surprise, his chum Rene) several years later in Antoine et Colette, a meditation on unrequited love and the universal difficulty that men have being "just friends" with beautiful women. Michel Gondry's The Science Of Sleep trod similar (though more whimsical) ground last year, but A&C's brevity and understatement makes it even more effective, particularly in its perfect ending. most of all, though, it's nice to revisit Antoine and find him well, if a little lovesick. the end of 400 Blows is infamously wide open, but given the film's progression we're seemingly meant to expect further unpleasantness for Antoine; here we see wonderfully otherwise...Antoine has survived long enough to find out that adulthood is no easier than being a child.