The 400 Blows

Antoine, the main character in The 400 Blows, is a boy who is looking for a way. And by a "way" I mean that he is looking for a place in life - as a man who has an identity. He doesn't find it in the world around him (school, at home) so he looks to being a vagabond as a way of not only getting attention but also as a way of discovering. His ultimate goal in the movie is to go to the ocean and see it. This can be taken as a metaphor or literally. He knows there is more out there than his school teacher and his parents, so he wants to discover it.

When the movie begins in the classroom, his teacher is portrayed as a crazy, stressed out overly angry adult who pays more attention to the kids misbehaving than to what they are learning. His mother is very demeaning towards him and is also having an affair. His step-father, who is a jokester, is too much of one and doesn't really guide Antoine in the right direction. So in his immediate life, there is no one to look up to. All the adults around him are suppressive and constrictive. They don't let him simply be a boy and grow.

Due to all of the negativity surrounding him, he takes on a surly, nonchalant demeanor throughout the whole film. He rarely shows emotion and when he does it is because he is being a kid - adventurous and wild (i.e. the "gravetron" or on the beach). So in a sense the movie is about a boy coming into his own, but more importantly it is about a boy knowing that there is more out there for him than what his surroundings present.