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John Bailey recommended The 400 Blows (1959) in Movies (curated)

 
The 400 Blows (1959)
The 400 Blows (1959)
1959 | Drama
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"This is the definitive portrait of conflicted youth struggling toward self-identity. The final tracking shot of Antoine Doinel—running down the beach to the water’s edge, stopping, with no further escape route in front of him, then turning toward camera and freeze-framed with an optical zoom into his young and lost face—always brings me to tears. It is one of the most moving and deeply earned endings to a film ever made. It was Truffaut at the brink of his career, not yet the “Truffaut” to come, still the haughty Cahiers critic who thought that just maybe he could do it better than the films of the French “Tradition of Quality.” And he and his fellow Cahiers writers did do it better. Truffaut and Malle were the two humanist poles of the New Wave, with Truffaut most closely mirroring the mix of emotions that resided in the work of his mentor, Jean Renoir, whose own film"

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Young Jean Lee recommended Touki Bouki (1973) in Movies (curated)

 
Touki Bouki (1973)
Touki Bouki (1973)
1973 | Drama
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"In general, I’m not a big fan of French New Wave films, and Touki bouki is clearly inspired by their characteristic fragmented, slow-moving, alienating quality. But the world of Touki bouki is so beautiful and engrossing that it sucks you right in. When the cows come toward the camera in the opening shot, you know immediately that these cows have been color-coordinated to within an inch of their lives. I love this kind of super-deliberate film where each frame could stand on its own. Even the piles of garbage are perfectly composed. Mambéty’s visual sense of humor is terrific: the man trying to break up a fight between two women only to get beaten up himself, the taxi driver running away in his yellow socks, Mory in the paddleboat with the lecherous Charlie. The main characters, Mory and Anta, never ask for our sympathy, because they are too cool for us."

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