#1- The 400 Blows

I am proud to say that I have watched my first movie.
Granted, I almost stopped halfway through and begged "no more" to the Movie Gods, but I am glad that I finished it. I still have no idea why this movie is titled "The 400 Blows". Maybe the "400 blows" stand for the 400 ways the main character Dionel finds to get into trouble. Seriously, this kid was constantly in trouble, and I even caught myself screaming at him "why would you ever think that it is a good idea to do that?" Then, I remembered that he was only about twelve years old. This movie reminds me a bit of Oliver Twist, if Oliver was set in the 1930's in France. There are so many parallels between these two movies. From the rag-tag group of boys to the group of grossly neglectful adults, the only thing that the 400 Blows was missing were the catchy musical numbers. Then, we would have had a french Oliver! It was a little mind numbing at first, because this movie is really dialogue heavy. It is also entirely spoken in French. It picks up in the middle when you start to feel a little bad for Dionel ,even though he does many painfully stupid things. Spoiler alert (to those who care)- At the end when he runs away to the ocean, I found myself in a total Chariots of Fire moment while saying, "Run, Dionel, Run!"