Stolen Kisses (1969)

By the end of The 400 Blows we see young Jean-Pierre Leaud looking out to the sea to an uncertain future after he escaped from juvenile detention.In Stolen Kisses, we catch up with him as a young adult trying to find a place in life but hopelessly all at sea.Antoine Doinel plays Jean-Pierre Leaud as geeky, gawky, awkward, and rebellious.He has been dishonourably discharged from the army. He gets a telling off from his superior office about the youth of today. Antoine pulls funny faces at this point to highlight his nonchalant attitude. Antoine then proceeds to steal his uniform, go back to Paris and have sex with a prostitute.Antoine then goes to see his on/off girlfriend who he has not written to to for some time when he was at the army. We suspect that she is seeing someone else and we later note that she is also being followed.Antoine who is uneducated, lacking a lot of skills even common sense haphazardly goes through a series of jobs. He becomes a night- watchman at a hotel which lasts one night because he was blagged by a private detective. Luckily the detective gets him a job at his detective agency. Although he learns some skills he is still inept but he is planted at Tobard's shoe shop as the boss wants to know what his staff think about him. Like the film The Graduate, the boss's older wife has designs for him.All the time he has this on/off relationship with bourgeois beautiful girlfriend Christine which blows hot and cold. She seems aloof and distant one minute and desires him the next. He also has trouble relating to her, I never understood why he never wrote to her for months when he was in the army. At one point Antoine takes her out to a stakeout when following a magician and leaves her behind at a club.For someone who was a detective Antoine does not realise that Christine is being stalked by someone else.The film is a screwball comedy about love and obsession and two young people getting together awkwardly at a time when the young people of France felt displaced.Again François Truffaut is well served by his alter-ego Antoine Doinel who has the boyish, charming and goofy quality that brings out the humour. His persona is different from The 400 Blows where we felt that he might end up being a petty criminal lost in some underclass.

Review In A Nutshell:Stolen Kisses is about a young man who was discharged from the army due to constantly being absent without permission, and has first taken up a job as a night watchmen before eventually delving into the profession of a private detective.It was truly stupid of me to start off with this film, as I have found out after watching the film that this is the third film of a trilogy that started with The 400 Blows about the character, Antoine Doinel. This is the main reason why I felt kind of slightly detached with the character and not comprehensively understand the intentions that Truffaut was trying to push with this film. Luckily though, I still was able to enjoy this film as I found the protagonist and the adventures he goes on, to be highly fun and quirky. I loved watching him attempting to succeed in areas that are clearly not meant for him, and at the same time watch him becoming distracted by the women in his life, and how they affect his "career". The most interesting was definitely the relationship between him and Catherine, as they both don't seem to agree on their current feelings for one another that it becomes complicated to have things run smoothly for them. Truffaut doesn't romanticize the relationship though; he keeps it highly respectable but still retains that sense of quirkiness, which I also found in the previous film I have seen from the director, Jules and Jim. As I have said, the film's protagonist came off intriguing as Truffaut handled it in a very interesting way, and definitely someone I would love to explore more deeply.One can justify that this film is a romantic comedy as those elements are definitely clear when watching this film, but I personally felt like there was more to it than just that. I felt that the film was trying to say something about "useless" men that have been ejected from the army, to show us how difficult it is to make a living for yourself and to feel incompetent to society, but it feels buried deep into the film that could be easily accessed if one has seen the two films that preceded this. The film also explores the idea of obsession, though not as dire as what Hitchcock presented in Vertigo, but in a comedic and slightly more realistic kind of way. I am not sure whether or not Truffaut was conscious when he has made the reference, but I do see some of the resemblance, then again this may just be me. Nevertheless, these themes don't interfere with the tone and style that Truffaut was going for, and can still be enjoyed at a superficial level.The film's camera work was satisfying, creating that light and comedic mood that makes the film feel easily accessible and digestible. There were times, particularly during the shots that capture Antoine walking around the streets of Paris, where the filmmakers are trying to suggest that sense of monitoring; like as if someone is watching your every move. Even by the end of the film, a character who suddenly reveals he to be a watcher has shown us that one can't truly be safe. The film's score was quite pleasant to listen to, particularly the opening track as it creates this warm, sweet feeling that I haven't felt about in a song played during a film for a very long time. The orchestral score on the other hand plays out the same feelings in me as the opening track, light and sweet, doesn't try to play with your emotions but instead highlights the personality of the characters and the comedic tone of the film. One can't help but grin a little when little moments happen in the film and some of the commendation belongs to the film's music.The acting in this film was wonderful, boasting a strong performance from Jean-Pierre Leaud. He played his character with such ease, that I can't help but feel impressed, as other actors who play characters like this try to come off as quirky and funny but end up either overwhelming or underwhelming in their performance. Leaud was able to incorporate comedy in almost all areas of his performance, physical and verbal, with some showing subtlety while others are plain obvious, but the lack of subtlety in some of his physical performance doesn't hurt his performance in the film, at times it actually makes it funnier that he has shown such commitment in making his movements look and feel hilarious. This is primarily Leaud's film so the other actors were only present to support our perceptions of the character, so I would leave my critique for the other actors in my second viewing of the film.Stolen Kisses is a delightful film from Truffaut that definitely would have benefited me if I have seen the films that preceded it.

It amazes me that everybody watch "The 400 Blows", love the film but doesn't have interest in following all the other adventures of Antoine Doinel or people seem to lose track of just five films but prefer to watch all James Bond films. What amazes me even more is that the other films of Antoine appeals more to me than the original one, although I love and rank them on the same level.In the most comical film of Doinel series "Stolen Kisses", Jean-Pierre Léaud playing his unforgettable character, is discharged from the army and needs to find a new job. He starts as night watchman, something ridiculous happens and then he's out of work. Later, he works as a private investigator, having an unique talent for the job and getting himself involved with some bizarre investigations; and one of them takes him to his new fake job as a stock boy in Mr. Tabard's shoes-shop when this guy wants to know why nobody likes him and Doinel must find the reason. While there, he falls in love with Tabard's wife who also seems obsessed with him; Doinel has other things to investigate and other female interests, and of course he meets Colette and Christine again, women presented in Doinel's other films.Here's what Truffaut makes: he takes this hard-working character, puts him in strange, humored yet very realistic situations of the day-by-day, brings back some connections of the previous films too and the result is a nice, funny, beautiful film that gives a positive light to Antoine Doinel, a man only trying to survive in the best way he can. It's very surprising how he can manage to do so many things in different lines of work specially if you consider that in "The 400 Blows" he hated school, he hadn't patience to sit and learn, the same thing happen in the beginning of this film, the reason why he was discharged of Army, yet he can do lots of things, a multi task man for all seasons. Truffaut succeeds in doing what Woody Allen sometimes tries so hard to do and that is make something really funny with a sense of realism and absurd going altogether, hand in hand. It's a perfect romantic comedy too, since Doinel is seen chasing women and all (the funniest date he has is with a woman so tall that makes him feel like a midget next to her, this moment can be seen also in "Love on the Run").Léaud is always brilliant playing the director's alter ego, he's very funny, charming, very good looking. The story is all good with great and hilarious dialogs and insights, unforgettable sequences and plenty of humor. And who could possibly predict that Doinel's life would be THAT good? Certainly not me, not him or anyone else. Here's a surprising and lovely film, and one of the most funniest I've ever seen. 10/10

It is incredible how well this film has held up over the years, and how it continues to fill you with all the spirit of hope and exultation that was part of l'epoque. This is not an overtly political film, though there are passing references to and images of the contemporary demonstrations which would shake France to its core in May of '68. Nonetheless, it captures spectacularly well the revolutionary feel of the times and makes perfectly understandable why Truffaut and Godard would call for the cancellation of the Cannes Festival of 1968. Nothing could go on has it had in the past after May '68, and "Stolen Kisses" itself was a statement of that refusal. The film is perhaps the best political film of the upheaval of that period for at least two reasons: 1) the attitude towards work: Antoine Doinel passes from job to job without a second thought, not worrying himself about a "career," and with a playful attitude that seemed inspired by Guy Debord's slogan of "ne travaillez jamais" ("never work"); 2) the attitude towards life in general: the film reflects that sensibility of the '68 movement that "everything is possible", that life can be lived as one adventure after another (as opposed to the dreary workaday life proffered by the bourgeoisie), that the craziest things can happen to you and that you should be open to taking them into your life (e.g., Christine falling in love with Antoine and vice versa). The lightness of the film is its greatest quality, for it suggests that all those "heavy" structures, physical, psychological, political and societal, can be overcome ("sous les pavés, la plage"/"beneath the pavement lies the beach") and life can be recovered.