Les Mistons

This first short film by Francois Truffaut is distinguished by 1) his use of a mobile camera; 2) his lyrical obsession with a sensual female; 3) allusions to early cinema; and 4) his use of an adolescent male or group of adolescent males whose emotional development is stunted. In this film we see nearly all of the thematic material that was to preoccupy Truffaut for much of his cinematic oeuvre. Les MISTONS opens with a brauvura sequence of reverse "traveling" shots of a beautiful girl on a bike as she rides her bike to met her boyfriend. These shots are linked together by dissolves that despite the credits that are layered over them, reveal Truffaut's insistence on the "reality" of his location shooting. This sequence is the cinematic equivalent of his polemic "A Certain Tendency in French Cinema." Truffaut's disgust with the contemporary French cinema reliance on in-studio locations, set design and static framing are here destroyed in the opening sequence of shots from this his first film, LES MISTONS. He also alludes to an early film by the Lumiere Brothers," L'arrosseur Arrosse" in a comic sequence that was recreated and inserted within the film. Of greater interest is the 'emotional stunting' of the young male protagonists of the film (the les mistons of the title) who are too young to understand the tribulations of love as the young woman of whom they were so obsessed changes after the death of her boyfriend. This inability to mature emotionally is a signature dramatic theme found in the famous "Antoine Doniel" series of films Truffaut created including his first international success, LES QUATRE CENT COUPS (The 400 Blows), and later in STOLEN KISSES, etc. It would seem that many of Truffaut's films are explorations centered on the theme of characters confronted by a need for emotional maturity after a lyrical moment of splendor. I am thinking now of JULES ET JIM after the death of Jim and Jeanne Moreau's character; how Jules almost 'emotionlessly' walked behind their caskets unable to 'feel' their deaths; unable to emotionally mature, but forced to now out of circumstance. LES MISTONS provides an interesting key into the rest of Truffaut's films.