Two Foreign Film Reviews For The Price Of One!

Watching the 400 Blows and La Strada was a great change of pace from watching more mainstream films. Both defy an easy genre classification -- they were both funny and gut-wrenchingly tragic at the same time.

The films were small. I don’t write “small” meaning trivial or insignificant. I use the word to convey that the films were character driven rather than spectacles. They were intimate; I forgot that I was watching movies and felt like I was observing the occurrences, both big and small, of these people’s lives.

I liked the realism of the characters in the 400 Blows. Take Antoine’s teacher, for instance. At the beginning of the film, he struggles to keep control of a classroom of rowdy boys. If that was his only scene in the film, he could be classified as “the mean teacher” because of the harsh way he deals with the students. But later on he shows genuine concern for Antoine over his mother’s death. The next day, he almost jokes to Antoine about his punishment. One temperament, but many different reactions -- just like people in real life.

La Strada takes the idea one step further and taught me that it’s possible to create very unlikely characters but still make them behave in believable ways.

The films used so much more than words to create emotional depth of character. The way that the mother (400 Blows) studies her face in the mirror conveys the regret that she feels about the direction her life has taken more effectively than words could have done. In La Strada, Zampano’s rough handling of Gelsomina reveals what a cruel brute he is. Appropriately enough, they part ways in winter, which is cold and is associated with things dying.

I think the theme of the 400 Blows is that a person decides his own identity. Getting caught in the classroom with a racy picture starts a chain of events that puts the boy on the road to ruin... Antoine begins to define himself by imagining, “I deface the classroom walls...” (I am a bad child.) He later tries to define himself as Balzac; however, this proves disastrous.

La Strada wrestles with the universal question, “What am I here for?” The Fool suggests that everything has a purpose. Gelsomina decides that her purpose in life is to be with Zampano, even though I suspect that she would have rather gone on with the Fool.

If you're in the mood for a different sort of film, why not try out the foreign or subtitle section at your local library?