The Adventures of Antoine Doinel

Remember Michael Apted's documentary films from 7 Up to 42 Up, checking in with a group of Brits every seven years from the age of seven onwards? The fictional equivalent is Francois Truffaut's wonderful two-decade-spanning series of five films featuring the character of Antoine Doinel, played by Truffaut semi-alter-ego Jean-Pierre Léaud. We first meet Antoine at the age of 12 in the 1959 b&w classic The 400 Blows, an alternately hilarious and heartbreaking keynote film of the French New Wave, in which the boy's emotionally cold home life ultimately drives him on to the streets where he is caught stealing a typewriter (to pawn for food) and is sent to a reform school. Rarely seen is the second film in the cycle, Antoine and Colette (1962), a 30-minute short originally compiled in the feature-length omnibus Love at Twenty, featuring Marie-France Pisier as a music conservatory student who catches Antoine's eye. The third film, Stolen Kisses (1968), one of Truffaut's best, finds Antoine failing at a series of temp jobs before signing on as a most unlikely private detective for the Blady Agency, while also wooing Christine (Claude Jade). In the also delightful Bed and Board (1970), Antoine and Christine are married, preparing to have their first child, and facing the first great domestic crisis of their relationship--Antoine's affair with a Japanese woman. Finally, Love on the Run (1979) finds stubble-faced, disheveled, thirtysomething novelist Antoine finalizing his divorce, pursuing a new relationship with record store clerk Sabine (Dorothée), meeting up with old flame Colette (now a judge!), and recalling happier days with Christine (the least effective of the films, half of Love on the Run is comprised of flashbacks from the earlier films). Granted, from the simple plot synopses, Antoine Doinel seems to be the world's biggest cad, but--thanks to Léaud's charming performances--he is ultimately endearing, if unquestionably flawed; a perpetual adolescent who often gets as good as he gives in the mostly warmhearted battle of the sexes chronicled in these wonderful films. Featuring characteristically top-notch transfers and solid Dolby Digital mono sound, the discs include numerous interview excerpts and archival footage clips with Truffaut, and the handsomely boxed set also includes 74-page booklet, and a supplemental disc entitled "Les Salades de L'amour" (the title of Doinel's autobiographical first novel), with Truffaut's wonderful debut short "Les Mistons" and a 45-minute interview with Truffaut's co-writers Claude de Givray and Bernard Revon. Without question one of the true landmark DVD releases of this or any other year, this is highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (R. Pitman)