The Brattle In Cambridge has a free Elements of Cinema film festival going on the second Saturday of every month. September's film is Bergman's The Silence. August's was Truffaut's The 400 Blows. I went to see it with my movie buddy, D.

There was a “discussion” after the movie. The moderator was a perfectly charming Irish guy who teaches at Emerson. He was a very generous sort, intellectually, and very, very patient.

I, on the other, was not.  I hadn't had breakfast, so I was famished by the time the movie ended, and didn't want to stick around, fearing the "discussion" would rapidly devolve from more or less intelligible observations about the movie itself or the art of cinema in general to the contemplation of the unfathomable inner worlds of some of the audience members.

D. said, "let's give it ten, fifteen minutes, and if we feel ourselves getting sucked into the mire of some viewer's psyche, we'll hightail it out the rear exit."

Well, as feared, several people who stuck around for what might better have been called the "sharing" period, since no discussion is really possible unless we all inhabit roughly the same reality, were compelled to attempt to paint a picture of their inner world for the rest of us.

"It reminded me of that trip to Maine when we saw the seagull drown in the sea," said one.

"That's a very interesting observation," the moderator ventured.

There followed a good deal of discussion about the final freeze frame and the word "FIN" at the end.

"Isn't it fascinating," someone said, "that sharks have fins? Do you think the boy was devoured by a shark?"

"Mmm," the moderator said. "That's something to think about."

Another woman said she felt like "FIN" was actually a question.

"Was it really the end?" she asked.

Someone else piped up. "I think he committed suicide by running into the water!"

A third woman raised her hand.

"No! He ran up the beach, and found a nice old farm couple who adopted him and he grew up and married the milk maid, don't you think?”

The moderator, bless his heart, smiled and nodded and said, “my, so many interesting observations.”

(He did not mention them, but there were four more Truffaut films depicting the life of Doinel, spanning 20 years—so Antoine most definitely did not commit suicide by running into the ocean, nor did he marry the milk maid.)

I told D., "OK, let’s go."

She whispered, “why is it called The 400 Blows? I only counted three.”

I was like, "now that is a good question—go on and ask him."

She said, "but I don’t want to sound stupid."

I told her, "there are no stupid questions, except all the ones we’ve just heard. Go for it!"

So she mustered all her courage, raised her hand, and asked.

And he was like, “that’s a good question! I was going to mention this in my comments before the film.”

Apparently it’s an old expression for “raising hell.”

Once her question was answered I said, "OK, now let’s go."

It was nearly two o'clock.

So we went to John Harvard’s. And we discussed the movie. She detected an Oedipal theme in there, and I could definitely see why. The mother is a central character, and after Antoine sees her kissing another man on the street, she tries to seduce the boy, too, in a sense.

She saw it from the beginning, she said, when mumsy's shown taking off her stockings on his bed.

And then there’s that scene where she’s bathing him—he's standing naked in a little bucket, and she's kneeling before him, right at zizi level, drying him off with a towel. Then she puts him, naked, into her bed.

And she basically dumps him in the end like he's an old french tickler whose nubs have all worn off.

But the problem with the Oedipal interpretation is that through it all Antoine doesn't seem that interested in her. His father's already out of the picture, and he doesn't seem to be struggling with his step-father for his mother's lovin', particularly. It's pretty clear from the beginning that neither of them are going to get it, because she's giving it up to her boss.

There is an undeniable current of sexuality between the mother and son, but it's not Oedipal.

The heart of the drama may be the cynicism of adult relations, and the degree to which childhood can be compromised by them, and, even more to the point, one boy's initiation into the world of these relations, despite his natural urge to flee them. Escape is a major theme. As is the futility of escape. Antoine has nowhere to run to, and yet...

But The 400 Blows doesn't really need subterranean themes, and it's much bigger than any we could dream up for it. It's a movie so rich and big-hearted you never have to strain for its meaning.

What I love about The 400 Blows is that first, it's a time capsule and tribute to postwar Paris.

And then, it's just great cinema.  There are so many lovely scenes so lovingly, humanely rendered—one of my favorites is when the boys skip school and go to the punch-and-judy show, where all the children are much younger than they are, and Truffaut trains the camera on the children’s faces as they react to the puppet show.

There are no adults around (except, of course, behind the curtain), and the scene goes on and on, exploring the children's faces—enthralled, delighted, surprised, frightened. Always beautiful. Always true.

It's a wonderful interlude, and Truffaut lingers there for a long time.

Lucky for us.