178: Murmur of the Heart

           It’s been almost three days now since I’ve seen Louis Malle’s Murmur of the Heart (1971), and I’m still not quite sure how to feel about it.  I’m also not sure how to feel about the blog any more.  I’m questioning its validity, as absolutely no one has responded to any of my posts.  Is anyone out there reading this thing?  Don’t think at all from my despair that Murmur is a bad film.  It’s not.  In fact, visually, it’s one of the best films I’ve seen since I began this project, but thematically I just don’t quite relate.

            The story focuses on 14 year-old Laurent, living with his parents and two older brothers in Dijon France during the mid 1950s.  Though the home is happy and Laurent is provided for by his gynecologist father, he seems to have little in common with the rest of his family, save for his young mother who adores him.  His father’s profession is telling as sex is a bit of an obsession for Laurent.  He’s attracted to girls, but it’s clear early in the movie that no woman could live up to his ideal, his mother.  In other films, a child’s discovery of a parent’s marital indiscretions serves a major turning point, but Laurent seems to have forgiven his mother of the affair he uncovers almost immediately.  He doesn’t seem shocked or even particularly disappointed.  His love is steadfast.

            Murmur of the Heart is described as “coming of age” story by Netflix, but I don’t know if that’s really what’s behind it.  Certainly the arch of the story focuses on Laurent’s attempts to loose his virginity, and in a funny scene in which his brothers take him to a brothel he almost succeeds before his patrons interrupt.  Likewise, he spends several scenes smoking cigars and trying to hold his own when his brothers imbibe, but these are all secondary elements.  The heart of this film (no pun intended) lies in the relationship between Laurent and his mother.  She is his guiding force, and though he has his deceptions (as all teenage boys do) he keeps very little from her.  When she accompanies him to a clinic for treatment for his uneven heart palpitations the two are forced to share a room at their hotel.  This cramped arrangement is complicated when the mother (played with a lust for life by Lea Massari) plans a rendezvous with her lover. 

            Laurent’s views about sex seem both odd and understandable up to this point, but the plot takes an unconventional turn before ending up where few films (and film protagonists) should go.  I’ll leave this discovery up to you, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.  I can’t say that I didn’t like this movie because I did enjoy so many parts of it, but I’m still stuck in the middle with it.  Malle based much of his material here on his own experiences as a child (he had a heart defect just as his protagonist does), and this personal touch comes through in spades.  Watching the film I could feel his love for Laurent, but I’m not quite sure yet that I even liked him.

            He is a young man selfishly focused on nothing but his own ends.  At the film’s outset he is collecting change for wounded soldiers of the Indochinese conflict, but he seems to care less about the casualties than about appearing to be politically informed.  It doesn’t help that he steals a record, practically with the benefit can still in hand.  Throughout the film he is snotty and ungracious, even to those who help him.  I suppose it’s unlikely that I’d enjoy the company of any 14 year-old boys at my age, but spending two hours with Laurent wasn’t the worst thing I can think of.  He’s probably more like I was than I can remember at this point, but I’m sure it will come back to me someday, as it did for Malle.  

            I’m glad this wasn’t the first of his films that I saw, and it shouldn’t be anyone else’s either.  For that Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987) or his US commercial breakthrough, Atlantic City (1980), are much better choices.  On an interesting side note, for this piece on Malle I looked over his filmography to find that he directed a picture in 1976 (Close Up) which only three people have ever seen.  It was commissioned by a private investor, and only one copy exists. Weird!  

Grade: 2 Hats Off