The 400 Blows by François Truffaut (1959)

Antoine Doinel, thirteen years old, lives in a little Parisian apartment with his mother and step-father. At the beginning of the film, he is punished because of a pinup of a scantily dressed woman which the boys were passing around in class. Made to stand in the corner, he expresses his sentiment of injustice in a poem he writes on the wall, for which he is punished by an additional writing assignment for the next day. Having forgotten to write the assignment, he is afraid to go back to school the next day and decides to play hookey with his friend René. They spend the day playing pinball in a café, going to the movies, and going on a ride in a local fair. As they are leaving the fair, Antoine spots his mother in the street kissing a man, clearly her lover. Their gazes cross briefly.

The next morning, when Antoine goes back to school, he explains his absence the day before by telling the teacher that his mother died. Contacted by the school, Antoine’s parents soon arrive; his step-father gives him a hard slap in front of the whole class. Since he is afraid to go home after school, he spends part of the night in a printing shop where René takes him and then wanders around the streets until morning. We see him again back in school, where his mother, shaken by his absence, comes to get him and take him back home. She tries to win him over by confiding in him and offers him some money if he gets a good grade on the next French composition. The day he has to write the composition he becomes excited about the subject assigned by the teacher, feeling inspired in part by a Balzac novel he has just finished reading. In a little alcove at home, he constructs a sort of altar to the novelist and lights a candle in it. A catastrophe is narrowly averted when the candle sets on fire a curtain hanging in front of the alcove. To calm everyone’s nerves, the family spends the evening at the movies.

Antoine’s situation at school gets worse when the teacher accuses him of plagiarizing Balzac and sends him to the principal’s office. Antoine rebels, runs away, and seeks refuge at René’s, whose parents, well-to-do but irresponsible, let him do whatever he wants. The boys amuse themselves, go to the movies, then watch a puppet show in the Luxembourg Gardens with a crowd of entranced children. To make some money, they steal a typewriter from Antoine’s father’s office and try to sell it. Unsuccessful, Antoine tries to return the machine to the office but is caught by the night watchman. His step-father, alerted, takes him to the local police station, where he is locked up with a petty criminal and some prostitutes until he is taken to prison to await the disposition of his case.

In the last part of the film, Antoine is now in a facility for juvenile delinquents in Normandy, where he is subjected to a brutal disciplinary regime. Questioned by a psychologist, he talks at length about his childhood, his parents, and his experiences with girls. When René shows up to visit, he is turned away, but Antoine’s mother comes to tell him that, because of a letter Antoine sent to his step-father (evidently containing complaints about his mother), the two of them are no longer interested in him or his future. During a soccer game Antoine runs away from the center. He runs all the way to the seashore, where, on the beach, he suddenly turns back toward the camera and, in a startling freeze frame, stares into the spectators’ eyes.