Murmur of the Heart (1971)
Directed by Louis Malle
This loosely plotted coming-of-age tale follows the life of 15-year-old Laurent Chevalier as he stumbles his way over the burgeoning swell of adolescence in 1950s France. After having his first sexual experience with a prostitute and dodging the lips of a priest, Chevalier contracts a case of scarlet fever. When the fever leaves him with a heart murmur, Chevalier is placed in a sanatorium, along with his over-attentive and adulterous mother.
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What critics compared Murmur of the Heart to
And yet Baumbach hits a few killer bull's-eyes: In a late scene, the confused Frank, left alone for a weekend after his dad forgets to pick him up, riffles through his mother's underwear drawer and lays out her bra and panties on the bed, a lovely, fleeting homage to Louis Malle's "Murmur of the Heart."
Despite the absurdly all-American backdrop, the film reveals a particularly French influence in its use of composer Alexandre Desplat's sprightly instrumentations and its admirably non-patronizing approach toward adolescents, which recalls the precocious protags of Louis Malle's "Murmur of the Heart" and "Zazie in the Metro."
He’s an unpremeditated predator, a spiritual cousin of the mother who deflowers her 14-year-old son in “Murmur of the Heart.”
In the past, Baumbach has acknowledged the influence of Louis Malle (specifically hhis 1971 masterpiece, “Murmur of the Heart”) on his work.
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Roma, in this sense, is a kindred spirit of Malle’s mid-to-late-career masterpieces, from Murmur of the Heart up to Au Revoir les Enfants.
Francois Truffaut covered this ground in " The 400 Blows ," and Louis Malle in " Murmur of the Heart ," and they did it by giving us characters who were seen with absolute clarity, who were no better and no worse than your usual pre-gangling 13-year-old, and who seemed plausible.
The boy is played by a nonactor, Benoit Ferreux, whose puzzlement about growing up, and whose admiration at the possibilities of life, remind us of young Jean-Pierre Leaud in Truffaut's " The 400 Blows " of a decade ago.
Murmur of the Heart , another terrific coming-of-age film.
Queen of Hearts is a dark, engrossing and unflinching portrait of a dysfunctional family that makes Ordinary People and Murmur of the Heart look like a fairy tale.
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Iconoclastic director-writer Louis Malle's ("Au Revoir Les Enfants"/"Black Moon"/"Elevator to the Gallows") semiautobiographical sexual coming-of-age film is a lighthearted look at sexual awakening any way you can get it.
Uncertain or not, Malle did such powerful work here he won the prestigious Prix Louis Delluc for best French film of the year and went on to direct such diverse efforts as "Murmur of the Heart," "Atlantic City" and "Au Revoir Les Enfants."