A film that was often compared to Truffaut's 400 Blows, Touched in the Head was in fact called by Truffaut “lively, warm...and containing social criticism which is absolutely integrated, logical and exact.” The story is of a young baker's assistant who, in protest to his boss, locks himself up in his room - along with a sidekick and two girlfriends. One is a shy French girl from the provinces, the other a “liberated” Swede who evokes in the three French kids a longing for immediate fulfillment. But their adolescent experimentation with sexual freedom and rebellion against work is depicted as just that: in the end, though he cries out against his exploitation (by bosses, unions and girls), the boy is on his way back to work and both girls have disappeared. Most of the action, shot in black and white, takes place in the single room, and the dialogue has a spontaneous feel to it, leading French critics at the time to entertain hopes for a new New Wave.