The Wild Child

As in Francois Truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS and SMALL CHANGE, THE WILD CHILD is devoted to the perceptual honesty and education of children. In this case, director and star Truffaut has made a deceptively clear and simple picture on the classic subject (Romulus and Remus, Tarzan) of the socialization of a boy discovered in the forest. Based on an actual case study published in 1806, THE WILD CHILD stars Jean-Pierre Cargol as Victor, a long-haired nature boy who, apparently abandoned in the woods by his parents years earlier, is found and placed in the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb in Paris. The boy is treated as a perverse outcast and freak, but Jean Itard (Truffaut)...