As a Valentine's weekend treat I went to the ICA in London and saw Francois Truffaut's debut film The 400 Blows in a pristine print on a pretty big screen. Prior to this the only Truffaut film I'd seen was his masterful adaptation of Raymond Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451; the only English language film the French film-maker made and a notably troubled production.

Truffaut's debut tells the story of Antonie Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud) a young boy who due to a series of mis-understandings involving his teachers and his parents, and their general disregard for a slightly troublesome youth, resorts to petty crime. Doinel is a character that Truffaut and Leaud revisisted four more times over the next twenty years, and I'm already eager to find out where their imagination led them, though at the same time I cannot imagine a more beautiful conclusion than that presented in this 1959 wonder.

The film has a dizzying life, a charming wit and a subdued and heart-breaking note of sadness running through it. From the early class-room scenes, touched with a certain subtle humour that feels particularly Gallic drawing parallels with current film-makers such as Jean Pierre Jeunet and Sylvain Chomet, to the all too real broken relationship of Doinel's mother and step-father which have the heart-rending ache of Scorcese circa Raging Bull, towards the scrappy, mischievious exploits of Doinel and Rene that leads towards Doinel's downfall and an ending punctuated by Leaud's beautiful, slight and memorable performance.

I can't imagine there's much more that hasn't been said about Truffaut's debut over the past 52 years. Going to see the film I was, foolishly, a little nervous; knowing nothing about it, other than it being cited as a masterpiece by many film-makers and critics lists. I came out having had one of the nicest and most affecting evenings at the cinema for such a long time, and really hope that those of you interested in world cinema (and cinema in general) who haven't seen the film seek it out (and if you have seen it watch it again, because it's brilliant).

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