State of Grace

By JAY COCKS

SMALL CHANGE

Directed by FRANC,OIS TRUFFAUT

Screenplay by FRANC,OIS TRUFFAUT and SUZANNE SCHIFFMANN

There is a remarkable scene near the beginning of Small Change. A little boy, three at the oldest, shoves a pet cat out on the ledge of his ninth-floor apartment, then watches it fall until it lands, safe but a little confused, on the balcony below. Then the boy, dressed for play in red overalls, climbs out on the ledge himself, laughing, having a wonderful time. He dangles his legs over the side, onto a railing, then lets go, sliding off into the air and down nine stories to the ground.

Bemused Parable. From above, one can see the body fall. We watch the little boy, a diminishing blaze of red, all the way down, see him hit the ground close by a hedge. He bounces just a couple of inches, laughs and gets up, delighted. The boy's mother faints on the spot as her son toddles off to play. "Remarkable," says a teacher who lives next door. His pregnant wife explains: "Kids are in a state of grace. They bounce back."

This bemused and scary parable is the essence of Franc,ois Truffaut's magical Small Change, which last week inaugurated the 14th New York Film Festival. For Truffaut, children may not be saints. But they are a sacred trust, and he shares a special communion with them. In Small Change he becomes almost an accomplice in their youth.

The film is blessedly funny, acute and, in a curious way, religious. But it is never solemn, even at serious moments, and never sentimental. Children are not soft on themselves, and neither is the director. Maybe the most astonishing accomplishment in Small Change is that Truffaut captures the full intensity of youth without ever getting giddy. He works from the heart without ever losing his head.

There is very little plot. The film evolves through a series of incidents about a group of children in the French town of Theirs. Two boys sneak into a movie theater. A couple of brothers relieve a pal of his haircut money by tending to the tonsorial chores themselves. A little girl named Sylvie, sly and lovely, refuses to dine out with her parents, then organizes an intricate foodlift for herself among concerned neighbors.

There are also cameos of the first stirrings of adolescence, mostly focusing on young Patrick (Gregory Desmouceaux). Smitten with a schoolmate's mother, he buys her red roses and presents them with trepidation. She is surprised and very pleased, and straightaway tells him to "thank your father." Patrick negotiates his first double date with a similar lack of success. He winds up at the end of the row in the movie theater, his buddy in the middle with his arms around both girls.

Truffaut does not turn away from childhood tragedy. One of the Small Change gang, Julien (Philippe Goldman), lives with his mother and grandmother--both violently alcoholic and crazy--in a deserted house. Julien steals, falls asleep in class and does not really encourage friendship. His body is covered with bruises, which are not discovered until he is forced to take a physical examination. The police arrest his mother and grandmother, put Julien under state care until a foster home can be found for him.

What happened to Julien elicits a passionate, unguarded and only slightly whimsical speech from a teacher named Richet (Jean-Franc,ois Stevenin), who tells his students that children ought to have rights, that they can be scarred like Julien, even in a state of grace. The members of the class are baffled and politely bored by what their teacher has to say. Lovelessness has touched so few of them.

The teacher clearly speaks very much for Truffaut. The dark currents of childhood -- the ones that run through books like A High Wind in Jamaica and Lord of the Flies -- are not to be found here. Small Change is a celebration, and a joyous one.

Jay Cocks

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