Thanks for the memories!

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

"Les mistons" is a movie by famous French director Francois Truffaut that was made over 55 years ago back when he was still fairly young an in the early stages of his career. Same can be said about the actors as well. For Bernadette Lafont, it was the very first acting role, while Blain acted before already. I guess she was mostly cast because she was also Blain's girlfriend/wife the year this was made and it was the beginning of a prolific career. She garnered final acclaim for her role as Paulette 3 years ago before her death in 2013.This black-and-white film is a typical example of Truffaut's early work. Really little happens, even for a running time of only 17 minutes. Basically the narrator is grown up now and tells us about when he was a boy and he and his pals constantly kept getting on the nerves of a young couple. They do pranks etc., but as not unusual for Truffaut there is a dark twist at the end which probably made this childhood memory so precious to the narrator. I personally prefer "Antoine et Colette", but this one here is not a bad watch either. Nicely atmospheric and really elevated by the ending.

Les mistons (1957) *** (out of 4) Early Truffaut short has five young boys following around a beautiful woman who they begin to have feelings for even though none of them know exactly what the feelings are. They follow the woman around with her young lover as they walk, play tennis and eventually make love. This is a pretty good short with the director, apparently, reliving his youth and his first awakening to beautiful women in their short skirts. The movie is extremely well-made and I couldn't help but get a big chuckle at of the various situations that the boys put this woman and her lover in. I couldn't help but remember certain situations in my own use where my friends and I would spy on my friend's older brother and his girlfriend. Those innocent feelings are perfectly displayed in this film as Truffaut does a great job at bringing the children's feelings up front and also their confusion as to what they are doing and feeling. For all the innocence in the film I think it's fitting that the film takes a rather drastic turn towards the end. I won't reveal what happens but it too is a part of childhood and I think it fit the film very well. The performances by the five kids are quite good but the real beauty here is Bernadette Lafont as the woman.

Les Mistons displays Francois Truffaut's special gifts as a filmmaker in a nice shot of 18 minutes in Les Mistons, as he works with children, and a love story with the young. While the story is simple- five kids who've barely had their voices crack follow a young woman, Bernadette, who becomes their envy when she's dating Gerard- the execution is quite intelligent and involving. Before the 400 Blows and Breathless knocked around the streets of Paris for locations, Les Mistons shows their characters all over the place, in the woods, in the streets, on bridges, and even inside a rustic looking stadium of shorts (I loved these scenes, with their high angles and timing). And the children have a very, very realistic feeling to them, as this is indeed what kids their age do, if they have no technology or attention span. There's even a small kind of Cocteau quality to some of their scenes, like when they are play-firing guns at each other, or hatching their 'vicious' games against the love-birds.It also helps a good deal that the actress playing Bernadette is incredibly pretty, practically without trying, though it's not to say that Truffaut doesn't get some quixotic shots of her playing tennis or riding her bike. But it is without some doubt that the story will end with some tragedy, or at least some revelation of this double-sided way about youth, both for the invigorated like the kids or for the seemingly life-long blissful partners of Bernadette and Gerard. It contains the light quality of all of Truffaut's films, and while there isn't enough time to really get to know these kids or Bernadette (though for the latter it's better to have the mysterious, almost no-dialog quality about her), it works wonderfully- one of my favorite short films.

I first saw this film while taking a class in European Cinema when I was in film school. It's a charming story about a group of young boys in a small French city, their ages ranging from nine to fourteen- just about the time that boys begin to notice girls, particularly the older ones. The film follows the boys for their summer while they, in turn, follow around a pretty young lady whom they all have crushes on. It isn't until the end of the film, when her boyfriend returns home that they see her as something less than a goddess, but still something more than human. The film has a number of memorable scenes, but the most memorable one is when the boys follow her as she rides her bicycle to a nearby lake. She parks the bicycle near some trees, and goes down to the lake for a swim. Instead of the expected action, which would be to hide in the bushes and watch as she swims, the boys do something much more enterprising and considerably more satisfying- they line up, and one by one, bow their faces to the bicycle's seat and take a long, luxuriant SMELL of the seat that the girl (In a skirt) was just sitting on! Classic Turffaut, definitely worth watching if you can find it.