VIDEO NEW BOX SET OFFERS 5 FROM TRUFFAUT.

Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editor

It wasn't until college that I became interested in film. A professor suggested I check out ``Pather Panchali,'' the 1955 film from the Indian director Satyajit Ray, that was playing at a local revival house. Surprisingly, the story of a poor Bengali family proved enthralling in ways that the American movies of my youth hadn't.

On the surface, it would seem that having come from a comfortable white middle-class suburb, I'd have little affinity or understanding for the terrible tribulations the family endured. But being a great artist, Ray had created a universal picture of humanity - its beauties and ills - in a way anybody could understand. A short while later, I discovered another favorite director, French New Wave filmmaker Francois Truffaut (1932-84). Although they had differing styles, I admired Truffaut for the same reason I did Ray - his ability to illustrate the humanity in his subjects.

Truffaut made his international breakthrough with the 1959 semi-autobiographical film ``The 400 Blows.'' Influenced by the classic 1933 French film short about schoolboys, ``Zero for Conduct'' by Jean Vigo, the film tells the story of Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud), a recalcitrant youth of 12 who lives in a small apartment in Paris with his mother and stepfather. His parents for the most part ignore him, and school is a trial, thanks to an overbearing teacher. Antoine's only escape is staying at friends' apartments or escaping to the cinema.

Lonely and desperate at times, the boy only makes matters worse by playing hooky and lying. When the teacher confronts him about his absence, grasping for an excuse, Antoine stammers that it's because his mother is dead, which immediately draws sympathy (and laughs from the audience). Of course, things quickly go sour, and when the truth is found out, Antoine is suspended and eventually sent to a reform school and for therapy.

While Antoine is being examined by a psychologist, Truffaut trains the camera on the boy. Uncomfortable at first, he begins to open up. Within Truffaut's seemingly impromptu staging, and with his darting eyes, Leaud gives a performance that seems all too real.

Over the next 20 years, the actor would play Antoine again in a series of films - ``Stolen Kisses,'' ``Bed & Board,'' ``Love on the Run'' and the 1962 short subject ``Antoine and Colette.'' Those films, along with ``The 400 Blows,'' have been put out in a magnificent digitally remastered five-disc DVD box set by Criterion.

Along with the films, the discs include a number of interesting extras including archival interviews with the director and his co-writers, a documentary on Truffaut and audio commentaries by film scholars.

In a 1981 interview, Truffaut - who received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay for ``The 400 Blows'' - discusses Leaud and the difficulties in creating films around his alter ego Antoine. Like Antoine, Truffaut had a troubled childhood, dropping out of high school and escaping into cinema. He once said, ``I have always preferred the reflection of life to life itself.'' A lesser filmmaker might have opted for sentimentality in reflecting upon his life, but, in the same way that Truffaut kept the camera squarely on Antoine - with all his frailties and insecurities - he kept a clear eye on his character. The Antoine Doinel films endure because while warmth and compassion were part of Truffaut's world, so was a nonjudgmental nature. Antoine was neither good nor bad but human, as likely to err as to be right.

``The Adventures of Antoine Doinel'' box set (Criterion) lists for $99.95.