Antoine Doinel (1959, 1968, 1970, 1979)

Francois Truffaut helped spark one of cinemas greatest movements in 1959 with the release of Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows), heralding the start of the French New Wave. A semi-autobiographical tale, The 400 Blows tells the story of 12 year old Antoine Doinel, a trouble making preteen who runs amok in Paris. Not intended as the beginning of a series, The 400 Blows eventually sparked 3 feature length sequels, and one short film. Enough has undoubtedly been said about The 400 Blows, astoundingly good for being Truffaut's debut feature (though arguably topped by his colleague and friend, Jean-Luc Godard the next year with the release of A bout de souffle). However, for those new to the film (as I was just a few months back), it's absolutely require viewing for anyone interested in world cinema.

Starting with Baisers voles (Stolen Kisses) in 1968, the second feature length and third overall film in the series, Truffaut expanded upon Doinel's character, giving more control to the unbelievably charismatic lead, Jean-Pierre Leaud. Whereas The 400 Blows was fairly serious, Stolen Kisses is really, really funny. While 400 is undoubtedly the masterpiece of the series (and one of the greatest films ever, really), I actually prefer the later, lighter films. Leaud's comic acting is undoubtedly the cause of this.

Stolen Kisses, Domicile conjugal (Bed and Board) (1970), and L'amour en fuite (Love on the Run) (1979) shift the focus from the childhood rebellion of The 400 Blows to telling of Antoine's various love affairs throughout his life and his bizarre, constantly changing occupations. The real treat of the series is the cast, which stays the same for every movie. By Love on the Run, Leaud is 20 years older than he was during the filming of The 400 Blows. The viewer really gets to see the actors growing up, which is delightful. Unfortunately, Truffaut noticed this too, and made Love on the Run into a scrapbook of memories rather than a movie. About half of the film is flashbacks, which means scenes from other films in the series. This could be done interesting and well, but as even Truffaut would admit, he failed in this regard. Still, the material that is new is just as good as the previous films.

I think the Antoine Doinel series, available as a box set from Criterion, has to be my favorite film series. Truffaut's scripts are phenomenal, from the scenes of a family struggling to stay together in The 400 Blows to the scenes of Antoine bouncing around from job to job in the later films. The real treat has to be Leaud's acting, which was also put to good measure in a number of Godard's films. I can't tell if he's a great actor or just plays characters close to his own personality, but he's a lot of fun to watch. I would probably recommend The 400 Blows only to people interested in foreign classics, but I can't imagine many people disliking Stolen Kisses or Bed and Board.

Uzak (Distant) (2002)

As an aspiring filmmaker that lacks any especially spectacular ideas for films, movies like the Turkish Uzak are inspirational. To put it simply, Uzak is just about people being people. Granted, these people are painfully lonely, but no scene in the film feels out of place from a normal day. This is the least cinematic film I've ever seen.

By no means am I suggesting that it's bad. In fact, I think Uzak will make my eventual list of the best films I've seen from this century. However, the subject matter is wonderfully banal. It was filmed exquisitely, and is one of the more beautiful films I've seen in a while. By calling it uncinematic, I simply mean that nothing in the movie seems to fit the usual mold of what people make movies about.

The movie follows to characters in Istanbul, one an established photographer in the town, the other a friend from a village coming to find work. Long scenes show the two characters watching TV, eating alone at a restaurant or simply walking around snowy Istanbul. Their solitary existence is all too easy to relate to (though the shots of the characters walking through parks and only seeing happy couples at play was a bit heavy-handed). Granted, they are fond of following attractive women around, but minus their occasional creepy habits, the characters seem like people you probably know, or even people who write rarely read movie review blogs.

Like a number of movies I've written about, I can safely say that this is not a film for everybody. Nothing really happens. Not to say there is no story, but to reiterate, the film is uncinematic and there are no twists, no major plot points, nothing common place in most films. This feels almost like the work of a director unfamiliar with movies. Rather than making a movie about movies, as most movies seem to be, Uzak is really a portrayal of the actual banality of existence.