Phillim There are reasons why Truffaut is in the pantheon of greats. He creates for us simple human beings behaving simply, in everyday settings -- in that most cumbersome of artificial processes: a movie. Truffaut's people f' up, they un-f' up, etc. You laugh a lot, maybe cry a little, maybe get smarter. Looks easy, right? Late 1960s Paris stars in the film, along with Jean-Pierre Léaud (LAY-oh) and Delphine Seyrig, among a couple of dozen other superb actors and comedians.The legendary Truffaut-Léaud co-creation of the character Antoine Doinel continues here from previous films. Doinel is the quintessential impulsive screw-up, with an open heart, and goofy but undeniable sex appeal. Doinel is like Chaplin's little tramp if Chaplin's little tramp had some decent clothes, a sh*t job, and a lot of sex.Delphine Seyrig as Mme Tabard here is the luminous, unattainable goddess-next-door, eternally wise and humble. A more stunning film creature scarcely exists. Her scenes with Léaud are great events in all of cinema.The DVD I viewed contained much fascinating stuff in the extras: documentary material about the tumultuous times during the 1968 film shoot of 'Stolen Kisses' -- student riots, and Truffaut's principal involvement in the mass protest of government interference in the Cinémathèque Française, and subsequent shut-down of the Cannes Film Festival by him, Goddard, and other international film artists. Excellent history lesson.

lasttimeisaw François Truffaut continues the story of Antoine Doinel, the alter ego of Jean-Pierre Léaud, 9 years after the groundbreaking THE 400 BLOWS (1959), the rebellious boy has reached the adolescence, still rebellious though, he is discharged from his military service for being unruly, the comic vibe is established from the very start by the juxtaposition of the dead-serious officer and a laughter-repressed Antoine, who turns out to be a street-smart young man in spite of a tough childhood, and his parents have been completely evacuated out of his life (without any explanation). The first place he visits is a whorehouse, then stops by his girlfriend Christine Darbon (Jade), but is told she is out on a ski vacation by her genial parents (Ceccaldi and Duhamel), but Truffaut slyly implies that there seems to be something else on Christine's agenda now.Antoine finds a job as a night porter in a hotel in Paris, thanks to Christine's father's recommendation, a comely Christine visits him one night, she greets him on the new job and seems casually happy but not so enthusiastic. Soon he is fired for being an unwitting helper of a private detective Henri (Harry-Max), who instead introduces him to the new exciting line of business managed by Monsieur Blady (Falcon). Antoine starts his new vocation with great passion although his stalking skill is a far cry from professional. Truffaut's perspicacious insight of urban savvy is brought to the fore in this segment, mainly surrounding two cases, a subtle love triangle about a (closeted) man looking for his magician lover and a more detailed inside-job, where Antoine is assigned to undercover in a shoe shop owned by Georges Tabard (Lonsdale, a great scene-stealer), who wants the agency to find out why he is so disliked by everyone around him, but the irony is that during Georges' loquacious introduction of his background, the reason behind that is pretty crystal-clear. During the course, Antoine is hopelessly having a crush with Georges' wife Fabienne (Seyrig, enigmatic and fabulously seductive), the apotheosis of a woman's sheer perfection. He is torn between his unquenchable fascination to Fabienne and the on-and-off relationship with Christine, which extracts the most vehement outburst in the mirror scenes where Antoine's unfitting characteristic is pungently reflected, with the iterations of self-persuasion and self-boost, to no avail. Eventually after tasting the temptation, which costs him the second job, he reconciles with Christine in the cutesy chapter where he works as a TV repairman, but the uncertainty of his own feelings becomes more pronounced in the coda, where a stalker makes a wanton confession to Christine in the presence of Antoine, both dismiss at him on the spot, but think twice, it is the capriciousness of love and emotions that will certainly puzzle Antoine, and trigger every viewer, to discover what will happen to him and Christine later, aka. in BED & BOARD (1970), approximately after a two-years spell.STOLEN KISSES is charming in its carefree tempo and disarming in its frankness about whimsical triviality, it is not a major or challenging piece of work from Truffaut, but still scintillates with the profundity of a intelligent life-observer, an obliging humorist and an inspiring filmmaker.

Rodrigo Amaro It amazes me that everybody watch "The 400 Blows", love the film but doesn't have interest in following all the other adventures of Antoine Doinel or people seem to lose track of just five films but prefer to watch all James Bond films. What amazes me even more is that the other films of Antoine appeals more to me than the original one, although I love and rank them on the same level.In the most comical film of Doinel series "Stolen Kisses", Jean-Pierre Léaud playing his unforgettable character, is discharged from the army and needs to find a new job. He starts as night watchman, something ridiculous happens and then he's out of work. Later, he works as a private investigator, having an unique talent for the job and getting himself involved with some bizarre investigations; and one of them takes him to his new fake job as a stock boy in Mr. Tabard's shoes-shop when this guy wants to know why nobody likes him and Doinel must find the reason. While there, he falls in love with Tabard's wife who also seems obsessed with him; Doinel has other things to investigate and other female interests, and of course he meets Colette and Christine again, women presented in Doinel's other films.Here's what Truffaut makes: he takes this hard-working character, puts him in strange, humored yet very realistic situations of the day-by-day, brings back some connections of the previous films too and the result is a nice, funny, beautiful film that gives a positive light to Antoine Doinel, a man only trying to survive in the best way he can. It's very surprising how he can manage to do so many things in different lines of work specially if you consider that in "The 400 Blows" he hated school, he hadn't patience to sit and learn, the same thing happen in the beginning of this film, the reason why he was discharged of Army, yet he can do lots of things, a multi task man for all seasons. Truffaut succeeds in doing what Woody Allen sometimes tries so hard to do and that is make something really funny with a sense of realism and absurd going altogether, hand in hand. It's a perfect romantic comedy too, since Doinel is seen chasing women and all (the funniest date he has is with a woman so tall that makes him feel like a midget next to her, this moment can be seen also in "Love on the Run").Léaud is always brilliant playing the director's alter ego, he's very funny, charming, very good looking. The story is all good with great and hilarious dialogs and insights, unforgettable sequences and plenty of humor. And who could possibly predict that Doinel's life would be THAT good? Certainly not me, not him or anyone else. Here's a surprising and lovely film, and one of the most funniest I've ever seen. 10/10

MartinHafer This is an odd movie--not bad, but rather odd. The main character is a bit of a bumbler that seems to screw up most jobs. He manages to get thrown out of the army, lose the job as a doorman as well as that of a private detective. Along the way, he stops to have sex with a couple prostitutes and the wife of one of his clients while working as the detective. Apart from that, as the film begins his obsessive love for his girlfriend, though she seems a bit cold. Later, their feelings for each other seem to flip-flop. At the end, they both seem to have about equally strong feelings about each other--when a strange man comes out of nowhere for the movie's punchline. Does all this sound like a comedy? Well, while it has some mildly humorous moments, I didn't think it was particularly funny and the story just seemed to be lacking a certain something. I kept waiting for it to get better and to have more of a point, but to no avail.While I really like foreign films, I sometimes am frustrated by the incredibly unfinished style many "great" films possess. While this makes them different from boring and conventional Hollywood fare, sometimes I feel annoyed at what, to me, seems like sloppy writing or the refusal to hire and utilize an editor. I know this all makes me sound like a real nut, but some of Truffaut's movies could use a good editing or re-write--such as this one, Mississippi Mermaid and Confidentially Yours. Others, such as The Wild Child, The Story of Adele H., The Last Metro and Shoot The Pianist, seem much tighter and cohesive.