Underplayed Gems

Les Mistons (1957)

Les Mistons poster
Directed by
François Truffaut
Genre
comedy drama
Country
France
Runtime
23 min
Rating
6.8 of 10 from 105 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

A group of boys in a French town develop a crush on a young woman and then follow her around playing pranks. The film captures the small details of their everyday lives and their innocent mischief.

playfulnostalgicobservationalyouthfullivelymischievouslighthearted

What happens

Les Mistons (The Mischief Makers) is a French short film written and directed by François Truffaut in 1957. It was his second film after Une Visite in 1955 but it is considered his "first short film of any real consequence". Truffaut simply called it "my first real film". Moreover, it was Bernadette Lafont's film debut. She was at that time Gérard Blain's wife. The film demonstrates already some examples for Truffaut's "trademark tracking shots" and would "help define his style" as well as "set Truffaut on a path for his career". Truffaut's narrative stresses the details of life, hereby establishing one of the traits of the French New Wave. Thus he also became a predecessor of French film directors such as Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie). It has been stated that the formation of the French New Wave could be "tracked through two short films": Jean-Luc Godard's All the Boys Are Called Patrick and Truffaut's Les Mistons. In 2013 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City screened this film together with Truffaut's The 400 Blows. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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