Murmur of the Heart

Louis Malle's (Au Revoir Les Enfants, My Dinner With Andre) latest is going to strike different people different ways. It begins winningly enough in Paris, circa 1954, with the introduction of 14-year-old Laurent Chevalier (Benoit Ferreux), the charismatic son of a bland gynecologist and a wild mother (Lea Massari). Laurent likes jazz, experiments with smoking, takes an interest in sex, and battles with his older brothers. During the second half of the film, he contracts scarlet fever which leaves him with a heart murmur, and is nursed by his mother Clara. Clara is an unsatisfied woman who drowns her feelings of marital inertia in numerous affairs. As she plays guitar to her son and giggles, we already know where this is headed. The theme of incest is handled delicately by Malle, but he is so careful to build the chain of events leading up to the incestuous encounter, that this viewer, at least, was left unaffected by what should have been a deeply emotional moment. Murmur of the Heart is an intelligent and expertly crafted (too expertly crafted, I felt) film that will appeal to foreign film buffs at the least, and possibly to a wider audience as well. For many, the inspired illuminations of the turmoils of adolescence will outweigh the mechanical working out of the film's plot. Recommended for larger fiction collections.  (R. Pitman)