The Antoine Doinel series: François Truffaut’s underrated coming-of-age saga
The French New Wave transformed cinema. The ambition of these passionate cinephiles had an irreversible effect on the cinematic medium thanks to their keen eye for innovation. Sick of traditionalism, rigid studio regulations, and happy endings, a select few French auteurs disregarded convention. They made movies that were shot with handheld cameras on location, featuring unusual editing techniques such as jump cuts, and often incorporated a self-reflexive element.
This new wave of filmmakers was not afraid to comment on the political and cultural climate of 1960s France or simply depict in-depth studies of characters affected by their surroundings, creating a fascinating time capsule of a seminal period of French history. They reacted to May ‘68, explored the development of women’s liberation or referenced ongoing wars – these directors didn’t censor themselves, and their movies were bold and explosive as a result.
One of the earliest entries to the French New Wave canon was The 400 Blows, directed by François Truffaut. Released in 1959, the movie follows a mischievous young boy named Antoine Doinel, played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, whose audition tape shows him to be just as cheeky as his character.
Truffaut charts a defining period in Antoine’s childhood as he grapples with getting in trouble at school and with his parents. Despite trying his best, he can’t help but seem to get into hot water. For example, when he decides to dedicate himself to studying Balzac, he gets so fascinated by his work that he builds a shrine. Unfortunately, it goes up in flames, much to the annoyance of his mother. Antoine is equally sensitive as he is naughty, and Truffaut often highlights the fact that despite everything, he is just a young child in need of support.
The movie ends with Antoine escaping from the juvenile observation centre he has been reluctantly sent to, running towards the beach and stopping at the water, turning to the camera and looking us in the eye, confronting us. The 400 Blows was a huge success, winning Truffaut a ‘Best Director’ award at Cannes. But Truffaut wasn’t done with Antoine’s story. He made a sequel in 1962, Antoine and Colette, which featured in the Love at Twenty series, sitting alongside shorts by various other filmmakers. In this short, we see Antoine, a few years older, now working as an LP manufacturer, living in a small apartment alone.
He soon finds himself attracted to a woman named Colette, although he ends up becoming much closer to her family than to her. The short is humorous, yet you can’t help but feel sad for poor Antoine, who watches Colette disappear for a date with another man, much to his disappointment.
Stolen Kisses came in 1968 and cuts to Antoine attempting to reunite with an old love interest, Christine, all while dealing with a series of job losses in the process. The movie allows Truffaut to develop Antoine realistically. Despite our fondness for him as a child in The 400 Blows, it would be unrealistic if Antoine didn’t carry his tendency to get into trouble into adulthood. Thus, he is often mean, selfish and frustrating, with Truffaut allowing us to make up our own minds about the complex protagonist.
He tests our loyalty to the once-beloved character even further with Bed and Board, which sees Antoine embark on an affair with a Japanese woman despite having recently married Christine and fathered a child with her. Besides the obvious themes of infidelity and fatherhood, the movie has existential undertones, with Antoine finding himself unable to settle into a happy, fulfilled existence.
Truffaut ended the series with the weakest instalment, Love on the Run, in 1979, 20 years after the release of The 400 Blows. The movie wastes a lot of its runtime by featuring clips from the other movies in the Antoine Doinel series, although it does rather interestingly include Antoine and Colette meeting years on, reflecting on their lives since they grew apart.
The series reflects some of Truffaut’s real-life experiences, with the formation of Antoine’s character taking significant inspiration from his own childhood and early years. It is fascinating to wonder just how much of himself he poured into the character – he even got engaged to Claude Jade, the actor who played Christine. While Love on the Run is a pretty lacklustre end to the series, overall, the movies are more than worth a watch if you enjoyed The 400 Blows. Leaud establishes himself as a heavyweight champion of French cinema, his performance comedic, irritating, empathetic, and nuanced. Antoine is far from perfect, yet it is rare that we’re granted access to witnessing the growth of a child into adulthood on the big screen.
