Metro Arcade is a games hall on rue Michelet whose cramped, smoky interior becomes the setting for a decisive turn in Anthony Casati’s actions. He enters intending to play one last game before taking a scooter parked outside; after a brief, distracted spell at the pinball machines, he leaves the arcade and steals a BMW. The place is both a familiar refuge for young people and the threshold between Anthony’s hesitation and his commitment to flight.

Setting and Arrangement

The arcade stands on rue Michelet, near a row of two-wheelers routinely parked on the sidewalk outside. Anthony notices three scooters and one motorbike as he approaches, registering that only a Peugeot 103 has an antitheft lock. Rather than immediately act on what he has seen, he decides to spend some of the fifty francs in his pocket inside Metro Arcade.

Inside, two rows of games face a large mirror covering the back wall. The mirror extends the room’s perspective and reflects the smoked-glass shimmer of the electronic screens; from the pinball machines, Anthony can see himself as a short figure in their blue glow. The owner sits in a glass enclosure near the center, where making change and smoking Marlboros are part of his routine. This arrangement makes the arcade a place of observation as well as play: customers watch screens, other players, and their own reflections within the same enclosed space.

A Youth Gathering Place

Metro Arcade serves young people who come for games and for the chance to smoke without being seen. The room is relatively quiet during Anthony’s visit, but it fills after school and on Saturday afternoons. Its ordinary social life is visible even in the lull: two heavily made-up girls drink Cokes near the entrance, a player enters his initials in the Arkanoid high-score list, and two sweaty boys play a Japanese fighting game in silence, one pressing the controller with exceptional speed.

The arcade’s soundscape is similarly layered. The games and their music compete with the strong roar of the exhaust system, while the fighting game’s pauses allow the engine noise to come through. Anthony listens to the Beach Boys as he plays, surrounded by the same mixture of youthful entertainment, cigarette smoke, electronic sound, and machine noise that defines the place. The detail makes the hall feel less like a private hideaway than a shared, public environment where the prospect of being noticed is always present.

Anthony’s Last Games

Anthony has arrived carrying a backpack and a screwdriver, already equipped to start a scooter without a key. He puts twenty francs into The Addams Family pinball machine, but his attention is elsewhere and the balls drop one after another. He buys five more francs’ worth of credits and fares no better. After wiping his hands on his jeans, he hesitates, then plays another game while listening to the Beach Boys. He kicks the pinball machine hard enough to make it tilt and leaves himself without a cent.

The games occupy only a short interval, but the sequence gives his delay a concrete shape. Anthony is not absorbed in winning or enjoying a successful run: repeated failure and the loss of his remaining money leave him nervous and irresolute. His stomach has been hurting for hours. The arcade offers a familiar routine—coins, games, other players—but cannot relieve the strain that has brought him there, and it does not change the plan he is carrying with him.

From the Mirror to the Street

In the arcade’s large pale-green mirror, Anthony looks at his reflection and feels a strange peace. He touches his right eye absentmindedly and heads for the exit. Outside, he chooses the BMW with a Pollini exhaust manifold. Working quickly, he unscrews its fairing, uses the screwdriver to force a resistant screw, and attacks the steering lock before kick-starting the scooter.

The engine’s sharp whine alerts the owner, who runs out of the Metro Arcade and calls after him. Other players spill out behind the owner. Anthony twists the accelerator and escapes along the straight rue Michelet, accelerating toward fifty miles per hour before slowing for a turn toward the upper town. The arcade’s boundary thus becomes a practical as well as narrative threshold: a few moments earlier, Anthony was spending his last coins in a public room; now the noise of the stolen scooter has exposed his action and set pursuit in motion.

Narrative Significance

The arcade scene sits immediately after a family crisis. Anthony’s mother, Hélène Casati, has taken him away from home, and the following morning he leaves the room where the family has gathered at Irène Mougel’s. Metro Arcade is not presented as the cause of his theft; it is the place where he pauses, looks at himself, and then carries out an action for which he has brought the necessary tools.

The contrast between the reflected figure and the departing rider gives the location its significance. In the mirror, Anthony is briefly still, framed among games and other people; outside, he has committed himself to speed and escape. The arcade’s everyday pleasures do not resolve the pressure surrounding him. Instead, the scene uses its coins, pinball failures, watching players, and sudden engine noise to mark the passage from restless delay into consequential action.