The Social Echo Chamber in the 400 Blows

by Jose Ordoñez Jr. 

I love the Italian social neorealist movement of the 40’s. Countless filmmakers have borrowed from the movement as inspiration for their work. Most noticeably, Sean Baker’s The Florida Project explores the complicated lives of children in the outskirts of Orlando, where outcasts try to make by. One of the more important underlying themes of neorealism is the picturing of children as the hope of a nation. Whether it’s the anti-Nazi rebel group in Rome, Open City or Bruno, who witnesses his father’s transformation in The Bicycle Thief, filmmakers have pointed to children as the hope for a better future.

Not in The 400 Blows.

Photo Credit Criterion - www.criterion.com

I would like to think of this movie as the French New Wave response to neorealism. The 400 Blows presents a more fatalistic view on the youth. Children become a threat; the doom of the future. But it isn’t without reason. Antoine, the troublemaking adolescent, lives a fragmented life, often witnessing infidelity and abuse within his own home. At times, it feels like he is merely replicating and reacting to the situation fate has handed him.

The pessimism of the French New Wave becomes, in a way, more real than neorealism. What I love the most about this movie is its honest look at the poisonous echo chamber of fragmented family life. The victim becomes a victimizer, and the repercussions of poor social standards continues in an unbreakable link. 

Amidst generational tension in current day America, The 400 Blows warns us against judgement and rejection of the youth. The fact is that both the neorealists and the new wavers were right. Children can be knuckleheads that react to society’s shortcomings AND they are the hope of the nation. Neglecting the youth feeds the echo chamber. Take heed of the warning written in this movie.

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