23 December, 2011

Le souffle au coeur (1971)

AKA:
Murmur of the Heart >> English

Synopsis:
Louis Malle's critically acclaimed Murmur of the Heart (Le souffle au coeur) gracefully combines elements of comedy, drama, and autobiography in a candid portrait of a precocious adolescent boy's sexual maturation. Both shocking and deeply poignant, this is one of the finest coming of age films ever made.
This is a jolly coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old boy named Laurent Chevalier who is growing up in bourgeois surroundings in Dijon, France. This is France in the mid-1950s rather than America in the 1990s. Thus, Laurent is unharmed by events which would irreparably shatter the self-esteem of a modern American adolescent: he gets drunk, he smokes, he has sex, he is smothered by his mother, he is ignored by his father, a priest makes a pass at him, he gets rheumatoid fever, etc. There's enough scandalous behavior in this film to make 100 made-for-TV movies, and yet this is a very happy and oddly innocent tale.  

Starring:
Lea Massari

Benoît Ferreux
Daniel Gélin  

Director: Louis Malle
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