Stolen Kisses

Director Francois Truffaut and actor Jean-Pierre Leaud would team to make four features and one short covering the adventures of Antoine Doiniel, covering 20 years. It was the longest association of an actor, director and character in cinema history.

The second feature was Stolen Kisses, released in 1968. Much more comic in tone than The 400 Blows, the film views Antoine after being kicked out of the army, struggling to find himself in a series of jobs.

This film is really a confection, not very substantial but with a lot of Gallic charm. This, even though it was filmed during the turmoil surrounding the dismissal of Henri Langlois from the Cinematheque Francais, which caused riots in Paris. The film is dedicated to Langlois, and during the opening credits we see the closed doors of the Cinematheque.

But Truffaut was not a political filmmaker. 1968 was one of the most turbulent years in world history, especially in France, but there's hardly a whiff of it here. The only direct mention is when Antoine's girlfriend (Claude Jade) mentions she has been to a demonstration, and he reacts as if she said she went to the moon. Truffaut was also a sentimentalist, and this is a delightful but insubstantial romantic comedy.

The opening scenes show Antoine being unceremoniously and dishonorably discharged from the army. He makes faces as his commanding officer dresses him down, reminding him he will be unable to get a civil service job; suggesting he may sell neckties on the street. Recalling Antoine's urge to roam from The 400 Blows, we hear how often he went AWOL.

As with Antoine and Collette, the short Truffaut made in 1962, Antoine's only family is the parents of his girlfriend. This time she's Christine, whom he wrote to in the army, but they seem to have settled into a friendship. Christine's father gets him a job as a night clerk at a hotel, but he gets fired when a private detective tricks him into opening a door to reveal a woman in the midst of adultery. The detective (pointedly name Henri) feels bad for him and gets him a job at his detective agency, where Antoine becomes the most hapless detective outside of Inspector Clouseau.

One of his assignments is to go undercover at a shoe store, to find out why the owner (Michel Lonsdale) is so disliked. He ends up falling for the man's wife, and, similarly to The Graduate, which came the year before, the two engage in an affair in which Antoine is bumblingly nervous, while the wife (Delphine Seyrig) is assured.

This film is like The Graduate in many ways, as it captures the uncertain time of a young man who doesn't quite know where he fits in. As with The Graduate, politics are of no interest to the young man--he's a misfit, not a revolutionary.

It's interesting that Truffaut chose to follow his character from a very serious film like The 400 Blows with such a slight picture. Antoine Doiniel was, as Truffaut says, "like me, but not like me." So one assumes that in 1968, things were going well for Truffaut.