Le souffle au coeur (Murmur of the Heart) (1971)

[This review excerpted from my other film blog, The Summer Film Queue]

*****

MOTH, as even the acronym of the English translation suggests, is an Oedipian tale of a bit too much mother-love. Revealing this much doesn't at all ruin the film, which any viewer who still registers a brain wave when he hits play on his DVD player (admittedly this leaves out a good portion of today's movie watchers. Wow, aren't I a prick sometimes?) sees coming from the first ten minutes. What you want to see this film for is it's jazz-fueled, Proust-quoting, materially affluent but sexually frustrated protagonist, Laurent Chevalier. Laurent is well-played by Benoît Ferreux; his portrayal is subtle, with all the adolescent mama's boy vulnerability it asks for. This picture says it all:














And see it for the scenes with his brothers: two boys so bored with riches that their entire lives seem to revolve around goofy antics: constantly pestering their Hispanic house maid in really funny ways, replacing a priceless painting belonging to their parents with a cheap replica so they can destroy it in front of them, etc. All this lighthearted hilarity at the center of all of their lives is what makes the movie all the more disturbing. That we, the film's viewers, can spot the trouble beneath it all so quickly, trouble that no one in the family knows is there, gives the story its weight. The director, Louis Malle, drops subtle (I use that word again because subtlety is exactly what makes this film work so well) hints along the way that things aren't quite right, are perhaps leading in a dangerous direction--and this gives the film's climactic moments a troubling sense of inevitability, of fate. Born into such a family with such a mother, what chance does Laurent have not to turn out completely fucked up? We see a lifetime of therapy and bad relationships ahead, at the very least.

But more disturbing than the what-happens is the very final moments (which I won't give away). It's downright shocking, though really nothing further actually happens in it. It feels to me like the only appropriate ending, and one that not many directors would have the cahones to give it.