"Four Hundred Strikes": A complete guide to the development of juvenile offenders

Anthony was inattentive in class, and he and his classmates played tricks under the ground for the teacher to notice, and was punished for standing in the corner. Back at home, I didn't get much love. My mother and stepfather quarreled all day long, and I couldn't get the slightest parent's tenderness at all. One day, when I skipped class with my classmates, I ran into my mother hugging a strange man on the street. The next day, when I went back to school, I lied that I didn't come to school because my mother died. The school informed his parents about the incident, and his father slapped Anthony in the face of many of his classmates. He ran away from home in a fit of rage, starving and cold to steal a bottle of milk for the night. When he turned around, he stole his father's typewriter and sold it for money. As a result, the fake money was not negotiated or sold. When he was about to return the typewriter, he was caught by the police. After doing so many series of disobedient things, his parents were completely pessimistic and disappointed in him. Even if he beat him 400 times, he couldn't get rid of his hatred. Anthony also cultivated and became a real juvenile delinquent, and was imprisoned in a juvenile correctional center.

As the leading work of the French New Wave film movement in the 1950s, the whole film does not have too complicated plots, but the details of life are extremely strong, and the humanization is placed to the greatest extent. A small kitchen, a bed at the door, a lonely wanderer, a police station where people of all colors wait for one night. In a nearly semi-autobiographical childhood description of director François Truffaut, he focuses on human nature, personal situations and psychological states from the greatest angle. From the process of how an ordinary child became a rebellious juvenile delinquent, it reflects the common phenomena and missing links in society. Parents who do not pay attention to their children's growth and education, and teachers who easily punish students who make mistakes, seem to have all kinds of rules and regulations, but lack the warmth between people.

Only in an indifferent environment can indifference of humanity be cast. For a young man who is at a loss, he can only rely on his primitive intuition to resist everything around him. After the resistance is hopeless, escape becomes the only option. Just like at the end of the film, Anthony escaped from the correctional facility and ran all the way towards the sea. However, the road ahead is slow and still full of countless unknowns. Even if the theme of the film's story is placed in the present, it still has profound connotation and didactic significance. In contrast, mainland films more than 50 years later are still lingering outside the door of the "new wave", not only have not reached the climax stage, but even tend to be more and more marginalized. Chen Kaige, who was in high spirits back then, is now helpless. Perhaps, we can only pin our hopes on Jia Zhangke.

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