Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

The 400 Births

Tags: Birth, The 400 Blows, History, Comparison, Truffaut

NOTE: This contains major spoilers for both The 400 Blows and Birth. Soon I will stop warning.

Back in December, I saw Truffaut’s The 400 Blows for the first time. As the film closed, I was reminded of 2004’s Birth; I realized that the ending to The 400 Blows, if split in half, acts as bookends to Birth, both visually and thematically.

The famous ending to The 400 Blows begins with the film’s protagonist, Antoine, escaping the restraints of his parents and every other authority figure, and running away in a rural setting. The camera tracks alongside him with one long, continuous shot. The shot finally breaks when Antoine reaches the beach, running towards the ocean—a sight he’s never witnessed, but has always wanted to. After splashing around for a moment, Antoine turns around, walks for a moment, and looks straight into the camera in one of the most ambiguous shots in film history.

Antoine’s run is obviously a run of freedom; the camera gives us a side view, but no view of what lies ahead of Antoine. His future is just as ambiguous to us as it is to him. The run also implies something romantic and primal about Antoine’s desires: he’s running in mostly rural areas, towards a beach, and the previously unseen ocean. Prior to this, all Antoine has known is his family’s tiny apartment, the confines of his dreadful school, and at one point a cold jail cell. Antoine’s burst to freedom is his bust from the conventions and barriers that modern society puts on young boys (and what epitomizes boys but the longing for freedom and adventure?).

Once Antoine reaches the shore, he’s finally seen what he’s always wanted to, and he turns around. Some will argue the meaning of Antoine’s stare; is it sadness? Happiness? Indifference? An indictment? Regardless, it’s apparent that the freeze frame comes with an epiphany, and I believe that Antoine’s realization might simply be:

“Is this it? What do I do now?”

Antoine has fought for his freedom, for his dreams and goals, and at such a young age, he actually won, but once he gets onto that beach and reaches that dream, he stops, and he turns around. He turns around. Is it because his dream and purpose wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be? Perhaps. Think about when you’ve been in a parking lot and the driver thinks he knows where the car is. What happens when he realizes he realizes that he’s lost? He stops, and he turns around. When a child doesn’t know what to do next, they stop, turn around, and look at you for help. Antoine’s stare is a mixture of disillusionment and fear.

Is this it? What do I do now?

Birth opens with a hooded figure jogging in the snow. The shot is long and continuous as he runs through rural areas. The man, Sean, is running much in the same way that Antoine ran in The 400 Blows, but when we see where Sean ends up, there’s a change in meaning. He stops under a bridge, much like the one that Antoine was under when he began his final dash. This tells me that Sean is running back towards the point that Antoine was at before he went to the beach; he’s running back to that state of innocence that Antoine epitomized before he went to the beach. Perhaps Sean’s already been to the beach, and has realized what Antoine realized. Is Sean Antoine incarnate? Maybe not literally but perhaps thematically. It seems to make sense.

Looking at Sean’s surroundings, we see a cold, snowy, almost colorless place (almost black and white, a la The 400 Blows). Sean/Antoine has been to the ocean, has seen what life offers, and has become cold. He’s cold to the world and he wants to go back to where he used to be, back to the bridge, back to being a child. What happens when Sean gets to the bridge? He dies. Next thing we know, there is a child claiming to be Sean. A child.

As I mentioned, when Antoine runs, the camera reveals nothing ahead of him, implying the uncertainty of the future. But when Sean runs back, we see directly what is ahead of him, because essentially, he’s going back in time.

Fast forward to the end of the film. It is now Anna who is looking out at the ocean, but she’s crying. Her husband runs to her and finally gets her to turn around, because she does not know where to go from here. This time, it’s Anna who is saying to herself and to us, “Is this it? What do I do now?”

In the beginning of Birth, though she was an adult, and had gone through the suffering of losing her husband, Anna had not totally lost her innocence (why else would she believe that a kid is her dead husband incarnate?). The events of the film push her to her own running, first and foremost, to the young Sean. She has finally let herself accept that he is her husband, so she runs from the bondage of her family and fiancé much like Antoine ran from the shackles of society. But once the rug is seemingly pulled from under Anna’s feet, she runs to the ocean to find what Sean and Antoine found, and it brings her to tears. She finally saw the ocean, and realized that her dream is now gone.

Is this it? What do I do now?