SnoopyStyle Five young boys are enamored with beautiful Bernadette Jouve. They follow her and her boyfriend Gerard around. They are young brats causing minor mischief. Gerard leaves for three months promising to marry her when he returns. However he dies on the mountain and she mourns for the lost.It's one of François Truffaut's early work and shows promise of some future greatness. When the kid starts sniffing her bike seat, that's the moment that he is bringing something different than Hollywood. The shots are beautifully constructed. It's a great coming-of-age story of love and lost. It is a complete emotional journey packed into a short seventeen minutes.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Les mistons" is a movie by famous French director Francois Truffaut that was made over 55 years ago back when he was still fairly young an in the early stages of his career. Same can be said about the actors as well. For Bernadette Lafont, it was the very first acting role, while Blain acted before already. I guess she was mostly cast because she was also Blain's girlfriend/wife the year this was made and it was the beginning of a prolific career. She garnered final acclaim for her role as Paulette 3 years ago before her death in 2013.This black-and-white film is a typical example of Truffaut's early work. Really little happens, even for a running time of only 17 minutes. Basically the narrator is grown up now and tells us about when he was a boy and he and his pals constantly kept getting on the nerves of a young couple. They do pranks etc., but as not unusual for Truffaut there is a dark twist at the end which probably made this childhood memory so precious to the narrator. I personally prefer "Antoine et Colette", but this one here is not a bad watch either. Nicely atmospheric and really elevated by the ending.

bob the moo A group of boys adore a young lady who cycles around the area in loose skirts. Being too young to love her they decide to hate her and make her break up with her boyfriend. They follow her around and usually wind up watching the couple as they play tennis.An early short from Truffaut, this is a bittersweet tale that is less structured than experienced. The film is essentially about a group of boys who tease a young woman because they don't know any other way of expressing their lust for her. It is a little heavy on noise and action but it is still good at heart. I would have liked a little bit more in the way of character rather than the slightly pretentious (French!) dialogue that was delivered - it didn't do enough to help me inside the characters or their feelings, but I suppose I had enough to be able to work it out for myself.The film is visually quite stylish and reasonably well directed; although some of the shots will appear quite clichéd now (girl on bike etc) but it is still effective. If anything the lack of dialogue was made worse by the noisy shouting etc that dominated the film; I would have preferred it to be a bit more controlled as I found the noise grating and made it difficult to concentrate. The cast are mainly young children but the woman in the central role manages to appear alluring and `normal' at the same time.Overall, this film has meaning and is enjoyable and interesting, but it hurts itself in some regards. It is worth seeing if you have more than a passing interest in Truffaut but it is overlong for it's material, dragging some scenes too long and lacks a stronger narrative.

rbverhoef 'Les Mistons' is a short by one of the best French directors ever, François Truffaut. It was 2 years before his critically acclaimed 'Les Quatre Cents Coups' (The 400 Blows), and the greatness was already there.The story is about Bernadette, a girl so beautiful it is unbearable, so the narrator tells us. The grown-up narrator was one of 5 boys. Instead of showing their love the normal way, they tease the girl and her boyfriend. Yes, when little boys are in love, they do those things.The short is funny, dramatic and true. 'Les Quatre Cents Coups' was about a boy very misunderstood. The boy could have been one of the 5 from 'Les Mistons'. A very good short.