By the end of The 400 Blows we see young Jean-Pierre Leaud looking out to the sea to an uncertain future after he escaped from juvenile detention.
In Stolen Kisses, we catch up with him as a young adult trying to find a place in life but hopelessly all at sea.
Antoine Doinel plays Jean-Pierre Leaud as geeky, gawky, awkward, and rebellious.
He has been dishonourably discharged from the army. He gets a telling off from his superior office about the youth of today. Antoine pulls funny faces at this point to highlight his nonchalant attitude. Antoine then proceeds to steal his uniform, go back to Paris and have sex with a prostitute.
Antoine then goes to see his on/off girlfriend who he has not written to to for some time when he was at the army. We suspect that she is seeing someone else and we later note that she is also being followed.
Antoine who is uneducated, lacking a lot of skills even common sense haphazardly goes through a series of jobs. He becomes a night- watchman at a hotel which lasts one night because he was blagged by a private detective. Luckily the detective gets him a job at his detective agency. Although he learns some skills he is still inept but he is planted at Tobard's shoe shop as the boss wants to know what his staff think about him. Like the film The Graduate, the boss's older wife has designs for him.
All the time he has this on/off relationship with bourgeois beautiful girlfriend Christine which blows hot and cold. She seems aloof and distant one minute and desires him the next. He also has trouble relating to her, I never understood why he never wrote to her for months when he was in the army. At one point Antoine takes her out to a stakeout when following a magician and leaves her behind at a club.
For someone who was a detective Antoine does not realise that Christine is being stalked by someone else.
The film is a screwball comedy about love and obsession and two young people getting together awkwardly at a time when the young people of France felt displaced.
Again François Truffaut is well served by his alter-ego Antoine Doinel who has the boyish, charming and goofy quality that brings out the humour. His persona is different from The 400 Blows where we felt that he might end up being a petty criminal lost in some underclass.
In Stolen Kisses, we catch up with him as a young adult trying to find a place in life but hopelessly all at sea.
Antoine Doinel plays Jean-Pierre Leaud as geeky, gawky, awkward, and rebellious.
He has been dishonourably discharged from the army. He gets a telling off from his superior office about the youth of today. Antoine pulls funny faces at this point to highlight his nonchalant attitude. Antoine then proceeds to steal his uniform, go back to Paris and have sex with a prostitute.
Antoine then goes to see his on/off girlfriend who he has not written to to for some time when he was at the army. We suspect that she is seeing someone else and we later note that she is also being followed.
Antoine who is uneducated, lacking a lot of skills even common sense haphazardly goes through a series of jobs. He becomes a night- watchman at a hotel which lasts one night because he was blagged by a private detective. Luckily the detective gets him a job at his detective agency. Although he learns some skills he is still inept but he is planted at Tobard's shoe shop as the boss wants to know what his staff think about him. Like the film The Graduate, the boss's older wife has designs for him.
All the time he has this on/off relationship with bourgeois beautiful girlfriend Christine which blows hot and cold. She seems aloof and distant one minute and desires him the next. He also has trouble relating to her, I never understood why he never wrote to her for months when he was in the army. At one point Antoine takes her out to a stakeout when following a magician and leaves her behind at a club.
For someone who was a detective Antoine does not realise that Christine is being stalked by someone else.
The film is a screwball comedy about love and obsession and two young people getting together awkwardly at a time when the young people of France felt displaced.
Again François Truffaut is well served by his alter-ego Antoine Doinel who has the boyish, charming and goofy quality that brings out the humour. His persona is different from The 400 Blows where we felt that he might end up being a petty criminal lost in some underclass.