Murmur of the Heart

Only Louis Malle could take such a delicate subject and create cinematic charm and humor. Malle frequently used events from his own youth as inspiration for his fascinating coming-of-age films. Murmur Of The Heart is an excellent example of the unique allurement of French cinema.

'Murmur of the Heart' is an experience that sneaks up on you like the combined years of one's youth. The subject matter is what the repressed might reductively characterize as simple incest. That is NOT what this film is about. It is about the elastic moment of adolescence. The strange, ugly, and beautiful contradictions of familial intimacy. A boy deperate to taste the pleasures of being a man - while stuck in an awkward inbetween physical, and pyschic geography. This is one of the strongest films in all of French cinema.

La Soufflé au Cour really manages to make you question well-established values. Made in 1971 I can really imagine how it deranged the society and made the French film censure think twice before allowing it to be published. As a provocative film there's no doubt it's still timely. Louis Malle breaks taboos with a spontaneity that makes me as a viewer question if I've missed something growing up.

Malle seems to me to be above all a magnificent story-teller. There is no apparent message in La Soufflé au Cour, instead Malle let's the viewer make his own assumptions, based the deceptively realistic happenings and surroundings.

It's an unforgettable film, but watch out. You might be influenced by it.

Touching coming-of-age story focuses on the youngest of three sons of a French gynecologist and his wife in Paris in the 1950s. Malle does a wonderful job of showing the relationships between the family members, helped by fine acting by all, particularly Massari as the beautiful mother and Ferreux as the gawky 15-year old son. As with Malle's "Pretty Baby," issues of sexuality are handled without hangups, even if it involves children. It is well known that one of the central themes of this film is incest but rather than being disturbing or exploitative, it is presented in a surprisingly tender manner without being judgmental.

Louis Malle perhaps has directed his most controversial film about Laurent and his complicated relationship with his mother. Because he is the youngest of three boys, he is still a virgin and coddled like the family baby. The film seems to last forever but in a beautiful moving way. We watch as his beautiful Italian vivacious mother seems to attract admirers even her own son. Without discussing the film's oedipal issues, the film has some very pleasant scenes and some that are not so pleasant. Maybe Malle is trying to bring reality of a young body's sexuality. His two older brothers are not the sympathetic or kind older brothers to him especially. Laurent is truly the film's most important character but his mother is definitely the most important figure in his life. As he comes of age, she has to grasp with losing him to another woman, the inevitable outcome of any mother-son relationship. We learn a lot about Laurent's mother too in this film. While sexuality is another theme in this classic film, there are touching scenes between the Laurent and his mother. As he finds himself attracted to other women, he becomes daring, insulting and even unlikable. I won't give away the ending of this film. But it's worth watching even today more than 30 years later, I cannot believe it's older than me. It seems like it could have been done today and that's why it's a classic film.