Les Mistons (The Mischief Makers)-A François Truffaut Birthday Tribute Review

I watched a movie and it is called Les Mistons, directed by François Truffaut, released in 1957. It stars Gérard Blain, Bernadette Lafont, Michel François to name a few. This is a significant movie because it is Truffaut’s “first short film of any consequence”, according to the director. The story is about these young boys who terrorize (in a boyish fashion, nothing nefarious…) a young woman and her boyfriend in their hometown. It is a simple little movie but it speaks volumes as to where Truffaut would go later in his more famous movie, The 400 Blows. This movie, shot in black and white and funded by Truffaut’s best friend, Robert Lachenay, is a beautiful masterpiece even if the director himself thought it amateurish. For me, you have to start somewhere and Truffaut really begins right on the right foot with this little movie. The children are annoying as hell and you can see how they would be mischief makers. Though I must tell you that it a movie that will explore the theme of being young and losing that youthfulness with harsh reality that makes you grow up. That is one of the themes that is a current in all of Truffuat’s films which markedly is how his life seemed to be as well. The actress Bernadette Lafont is perfectly cast as the young woman whom the mischief makers have an infatuation with because she is extremely beautiful, which is another theme in Truffaut’s films, beautiful leading ladies. There are at least two scenes that stand out to me as part of how this film exists outside the norms of reality but also still exists in the norms of reality.
The girl is riding her bike and she stops at a lake to swim and she leans the bike against a nearby tree. The boys followed her to the lake and they run to her bicycle. They smell the seat (she wasn’t wearing underwear) and the boy sniffing it is in slow motion, almost dream-like. I know that sounds a bit risqué but to see it on screen, it is truly innocent. The other scene is when she is playing tennis with her boyfriend. She isnt too good and her skirt flips up and she is so lively. What makes this scene is how Truffaut seems to making her laugh and have fun and it translates into the scene and takes you out of the movie for the moment and you feel connected to Lafont and how the film got made.

It is all beautiful shots and is a stepping stone to what Truffaut produced many times in his life. I have it on the Antoine Doinel Box set from Criterion. I suggest seeing it. To see where the great master director of French New Wave cinema got his start and how French New Wave got its beginnings as well.