Memorable, crazy movie

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

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.

It amazes me that everybody watch "The 400 Blows", love the film but doesn't have interest in following all the other adventures of Antoine Doinel or people seem to lose track of just five films but prefer to watch all James Bond films. What amazes me even more is that the other films of Antoine appeals more to me than the original one, although I love and rank them on the same level.In the most comical film of Doinel series "Stolen Kisses", Jean-Pierre Léaud playing his unforgettable character, is discharged from the army and needs to find a new job. He starts as night watchman, something ridiculous happens and then he's out of work. Later, he works as a private investigator, having an unique talent for the job and getting himself involved with some bizarre investigations; and one of them takes him to his new fake job as a stock boy in Mr. Tabard's shoes-shop when this guy wants to know why nobody likes him and Doinel must find the reason. While there, he falls in love with Tabard's wife who also seems obsessed with him; Doinel has other things to investigate and other female interests, and of course he meets Colette and Christine again, women presented in Doinel's other films.Here's what Truffaut makes: he takes this hard-working character, puts him in strange, humored yet very realistic situations of the day-by-day, brings back some connections of the previous films too and the result is a nice, funny, beautiful film that gives a positive light to Antoine Doinel, a man only trying to survive in the best way he can. It's very surprising how he can manage to do so many things in different lines of work specially if you consider that in "The 400 Blows" he hated school, he hadn't patience to sit and learn, the same thing happen in the beginning of this film, the reason why he was discharged of Army, yet he can do lots of things, a multi task man for all seasons. Truffaut succeeds in doing what Woody Allen sometimes tries so hard to do and that is make something really funny with a sense of realism and absurd going altogether, hand in hand. It's a perfect romantic comedy too, since Doinel is seen chasing women and all (the funniest date he has is with a woman so tall that makes him feel like a midget next to her, this moment can be seen also in "Love on the Run").Léaud is always brilliant playing the director's alter ego, he's very funny, charming, very good looking. The story is all good with great and hilarious dialogs and insights, unforgettable sequences and plenty of humor. And who could possibly predict that Doinel's life would be THAT good? Certainly not me, not him or anyone else. Here's a surprising and lovely film, and one of the most funniest I've ever seen. 10/10

The first full length sequel to "The 400 Blows" is bound to suffer by comparison to the masterwork preceding it. "The 400 Blows" is one of cinema's greatest achievements, an indictment of child abuse and neglect that's hard to shake. Its follow-up, "Stolen Kisses", is a breezy, unfocused farce that at times seems hastily assembled. Reviewing the film I am reminded of the danger of undertaking a task of reviewing The Great Films. My dislike of them, or failure to "get" them, is more likely to reveal my ignorance than the film's flaws. I fear that I will be exposed as a Philistine. But here goes."Stolen Kisses" is not a bad film. But it is not a great one. Jean Pierre Leaud returns as the romantic Antoine Doinel and it is a testament to his charisma and charm that we continue to watch the series with interest despite its decline in quality. Doinel is still running everywhere, unlucky in love, bad at life, and still dreaming big. As noted before, the fact that Doinel emerged from "The 400 Blows" a relatively happy person is both a relief and--possibly this reveals a cruel streak in this author--a disappointment. "Blows" closing note of doom and sadness is bleak, but perfect and we can't but help feel that the film's coda is undermined by a sequel.While "Blows" was wistful, "Kisses" is comic. It features the wacky misadventures of Antoine Doinel and more than a little mugging by Jean Pierre Leaud. We get to see him fail miserably as a private detective, hotel porter, and television repairman. These scenes of professional failure are often played broadly and Truffaut's direction seems at times rushed and uneven. The film's heart lies in Leaud's relationship with Christine Darbon (Claude Jade). As with Collete in the previous installment, Antoine is doted on by Christine's parents. Through them, he finds a semblance of the parental bonds he never had.Christine and Antoine's relationship gives the film heart. It is pensive and sweet: the anxious Antoine attacking the demure Christine all while trying to figure out romance. While trying to snag Christine, Antoine will also find himself involved in an affair with a married woman who also offers him a lesson in romance and the fairer sex. This is the coming of age chapter of the Doinel cycle and it never quite coalesces into a pleasing whole. It's choppy and disappointing in light of its predecessor. Yet the performances by Leaud and Jade recommend the film and those who grew attached to Antoine in "Blows" will desire to follow his story further.

SPOILERS INCLUDED: The morning-after breakfast scene is so endearingly simple as Truffaut manages to convey all of Antoine & Christine's affection sans pushy music, cliché, or even dialogue- just the two of them sitting at a table, scribbling their declarations of romance to one another on a piece of napkin over breakfast. We don't even need to know what they're writing down. We, the audience are already captivated and satisfied to just share in their intimate moment celebrating life's little joys. And as we watch the scene with the flighty Antoine staring at his own image in the mirror, repeating the names of his objects of desires with utterly convicted indecision, the question of who should he pursue becomes a matter of life and death. Fabienne Tabard. Christine Darbon. We wait in suspense. And when he begins to repeat his own name with the same earnestness, we realize that perhaps this love is not fleeting- could how he chooses love determine the very essence who he is? Truffaut made a slight, refreshing break from the melancholy of the first two Antoine Doinel series. This third installment has some of the most charming cinematic exclamations of love and that twenty-something search for the "joie de vivre."