Truffaut and Leaud continue another chapter in the life of ‘Antoine Doinel’ in this charming take on youthful romance and misadventure that toggles between pseudo-screwball comedy and detective drama.
Review #2,741
Dir. Francois Truffaut
1968 | France | Drama, Romance, Comedy | 91 min | 1.66:1 | French & English
Not rated – likely to be NC16 for sexual references and some nudity
Cast: Jean-Pierre Leaud, Claude Jade, Delphine Seyrig
Plot: Dishonorably discharged from the army, 20-year-old Antoine Doinel finds it hard adapting to civilian life in Paris. While resuming his on-again, off-again relationship with Christine, he takes on a series of jobs.
Awards: Nom. for Besst Foreign Language Film (Oscars)
Distributor: MK2
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Youth & Romance; Sleuthing
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: MUBI
Spoilers: No
Antoine Doinel, the rebellious boy in Francois Truffaut’s landmark The 400 Blows (1959)—one of the films that laid the early groundwork for the French New Wave movement—is now a young man dishonourably discharged from the army.
Jean-Pierre Leaud returns for the third time as Antoine (Truffaut made another short in 1962 called Antoine and Collette) as the character navigates a new phase in life.
Hoping to land a job and also weighing the prospects of his situationship with Christine, a lovely young woman whose parents adore him, Antoine is in a state of flux. These could be the best years of his life but he doesn’t seem to appreciate the newfound freedom.
Stolen Kisses is Truffaut’s charming take on youthful romance, with bits of misadventure and cheeky misdirection. It’s first and foremost a breezy drama—some might even describe it as a pseudo screwball comedy.
“Even when I thought I loved you, I didn’t admire you.”
Plot-wise, however, there is a substantial portion revolving around Antoine’s new job as a detective intern of sorts, where he is tasked to sleuth around for info regarding certain cases, though they are rarely criminal in nature.
The film doesn’t get pushed into the noir-thriller territory in the way that Truffaut’s final feature, Confidentially Yours (1983), had done so marvellously while maintaining some degree of dark humour. And so, it remains firmly as a ‘lighter’ work in Truffaut’s filmography.
In one extended segment, Antoine becomes smitten by an older lady whom he is ‘investigating’, culminating in a moment that might be described as a Freudian slip masquerading as involuntary panic, which not only complicates his dual semi-interests in work and love, but also cleverly functioning as a marker of his earlier misery in the military.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 