Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows)

An unhinged imagination mendaciously prone feverishly flows with mischievous delinquency, in a time less alternatively accommodating when harsh punishments still prevailed.

He can't fluently comprehend discipline as its laid out by his parents and teachers, and begins skipping school after a headstrong dispute with his weary fed-up severe enseigneur.

His step-father habitually complains as his treasured belongings keep disappearing, the boy not comprehensively considering his disastrous petty malcontent abbreviations.

Unfortunately, his independent mother even admits his routine irritates her, and like little Claudius he proceeds unloved although he acts out much more rebelliously.

This lack of love the absent bond awkwardly infuriates further as he misses school, and notices her spending time with someone else, someone clearly not his step-father.

His thefts become more daring and he even enlists the aid of a lonesome friend, before the law is swiftly called in and a new trajectory meticulously hewn.

They didn't have to be quite so draconian if they had only accepted sole responsibility.

And made a serious effort to turn things around.

They're occupationally challenged however (they're more focused on their careers).

They don't really care, it's a bitter denunciation of self-centred parents who don't nurture their children, and the horrid situations which potentially arise if the young one reacts with aggrieved insurrection.

It may have had an impact on social reform within France after it was released, nevertheless, the French actually listening to what their artists have to say, since the poor child's utter abandonment and isolation in the film's final moments evocatively promotes the need for systemic change. 馃幓

It's a powerful scene which correspondingly brings to mind A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, or any artist in his or her childhood when they let their genius run chaotically amok. 

It's clear little M. Doinel needs compassion not the fastidious lockdown permeating bootcamp, but that's what things were like in the cold-hearted old world which blind foolish unsympathetic jerks look to with manufactured nostalgia.

Many blossoming artists remain ill-accustomed to ubiquitous rules.

Especially when they're young children. 

A bit more progressive in this day and age.

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