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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truffaut's "Unfinished Symphony" Beautifully Realized, April 15, 2002
More so than most directors, Francois Truffaut drew on his personal experiences (e.g., "400 Blows") in crafting cinematic tales of the pain and pleasure of growing up. "The Little Thief" began as a script idea of Truffaut's in the 1950s, but had never been realized at the time of his untimely death, in 1984. Janine (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is a 15-year-old girl, growing up poor in postwar France. Janine is in a hurry to grow up. But to Janine, who survived as a street urchin during the Nazi occupation, growing up means stealing and getting away with other such petty crimes and losing her virginity ASAP. After being run out of town by the local gendarmes, Janine goes to work as a maid in a rich couple's house and eventually falls in love with an older, married choirmaster (Didier Bezace), who tries to steer Janine away from crime and towards a productive life. Although she finds sex with him exciting, he is much older and their difference in maturity eventually drives the couple apart. Janine then falls in love with a young man, Raoul (Simon de la Brosse), who is from the lower classes, and influences her to drop out of school in order to pull off a heist during a dinner party held by her employers. After getting arrested and landing in reform school, Janine comes to realize that growing up is not all it is cut out to be. She begins turning her life around when she meets a fellow inmate, who teaches her about photography and darkroom printing. After escaping from the reform school, Janine finds that she is pregnant with Raoul's baby. Again, she wants to run away from her problems, and returns to her hometown to visit a back-alley abortionist. But Janine has no money, so the abortionist demands Janine's twin-reflex camera as payment. Assessing the situation, Janine realizes that she's been handed a sucker's deal; She will only end up without a camera and without her baby. So, Janine commits one last crime: She steals back her camera, decides to have her baby and straightens out her life, accepting responsibility for her actions. The feel of the movie is dead-on for capturing postwar France in 1950: The costumes, the sets, the automobiles, the Pathé newsreels and the period music all conjure a bygone era with style. Alain Jomy's impressionistic soundtrack recalls the best scores of Georges Delarue. "The Little Thief" is a poetic, beautiful, moral tale, but never moralizing. It's easy to relate to Janine's predicament, the urge of the adolescent to break the chains of society. Director Claude Miller uses this fable to teach the important lesson that one can only learn from life by having lived it.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truffaut's homage to cinema itself, December 20, 2005
Truffaut's interesting look at a girl coming of age in the year 1950. She is 16, from a poor family (her mother has run off to Italy leaving her with an aunt and uncle to raise her), and she involves herself in petty thievery to get the things she dreams about from seeing them in the movies. She is in a big hurry to grow up, especially sexually. She becomes a maid and starts an affair with a much older married man; she also meets a boy closer to her own age and starts a relationship with him, too. Both men end up deserting her, the boy after she quits her job, steals for him, gets arrested for it and sent to juvenile prison, AND finds out she's pregnant by him! She arranges for an abortion, but changes her mind and decides to have the baby and start her life anew.
Truffaut's love of the cinema and its "magic" - the music, quick pacing, and loving use of the camera (spiral "highlight" shots, for example) - is very much in evidence here. The tone of the movie, which has every reason to be depressing, never becomes that and is more like the tone a loving relative might assume when revealing the exploits of a favorite misbegotten family member. And in that situation we are usually expected not to ask too many questions or require any moralizing: indeed, a happy ending (of sorts) is plucked from what probably should be ashes. Truffaut goes for a warm, fuzzy feeling and achieves it. Some may argue that he's sacrificed honesty in the process, but truth can come in many different packages. A very pleasant movie-watching experience delivered by a master filmmaker.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truffaut's Unfinished Symphony Beautifully Realized, December 2, 2007
This review is from: La Petite voleuse (Original French ONLY Version - No English Options) (DVD)
More so than most directors, Francois Truffaut drew on his personal experiences (e.g., "400 Blows") in crafting cinematic tales of the pain and pleasure of growing up. "The Little Thief" began as a script idea of Truffaut's in the 1950s, but had never been realized at the time of his untimely death, in 1984. Janine (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is a 15-year-old girl, growing up poor in postwar France. Janine is in a hurry to grow up. But to Janine, who survived as a street urchin during the Nazi occupation, growing up means stealing and getting away with other such petty crimes and losing her virginity ASAP. After being run out of town by the local gendarmes, Janine goes to work as a maid in a rich couple's house and eventually falls in love with an older, married choirmaster (Didier Bezace), who tries to steer Janine away from crime and towards a productive life. Although she finds sex with him exciting, he is much older and their difference in maturity eventually drives the couple apart. Janine then falls in love with a young man, Raoul (Simon de la Brosse), who is from the lower classes, and influences her to drop out of school in order to pull off a heist during a dinner party held by her employers. After getting arrested and landing in reform school, Janine comes to realize that growing up is not all it is cut out to be. She begins turning her life around when she meets a fellow inmate, who teaches her about photography and darkroom printing. After escaping from the reform school, Janine finds that she is pregnant with Raoul's baby. Again, she wants to run away from her problems, and returns to her hometown to visit a back-alley abortionist. But Janine has no money, so the abortionist demands Janine's twin-reflex camera as payment. Assessing the situation, Janine realizes that she's been handed a sucker's deal; She will only end up without a camera and without her baby. So, Janine commits one last crime: She steals back her camera, decides to have her baby and straightens out her life, accepting responsibility for her actions.
The feel of the movie is dead-on for capturing postwar France in 1950: The costumes, the sets, the automobiles, the Pathé newsreels and the period music all conjure a bygone era with style. Alain Jomy's impressionistic soundtrack recalls the best scores of Georges Delarue.
"The Little Thief" is a poetic, beautiful, moral tale, but never moralizing. It's easy to relate to Janine's predicament, the urge of the adolescent to break the chains of society. Director Claude Miller uses this fable to teach the important lesson that one can only learn from life by having lived it.
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