Murmur of the Heart (1971)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Murmur of the Heart (1971) – L. Malle

Awkwardness and uncertainty – and the reactions to it – must be hard to capture onscreen; they happen so much in a person’s head.  But writer and director Louis Malle (and actor Benoît Ferreux) have managed to depict a 15-year-old boy’s emerging sexuality (and the awkwardness and uncertainty that accompany it) without resorting to narration or explicating dialogue scenes.  Instead we see Laurent balanced delicately between the enfolding arms of his young mother (Lea Massari) and the rambunctious and emboldened actions of his older brothers (Fabien Ferreux and Marc Winocourt).  The latter take him to a brothel but play a practical joke on him there.  His mother...well, this film is notorious because of the way it “solves” the problem of the mother’s acceptance of her teen boy’s sexuality.  Of course, you can’t believe it has happened (and this was apparently one of the few elements of the film that was not autobiographical) but as a narrative device, it certainly adds an emphatic and resounding note to the proceedings and goes where no “coming of age” film has gone before (or since?).  The title refers to Laurent’s medical condition after a fever which results in a stay at a health spa, sharing a room with his mother, which allows him to flirt with other girls his age (or perhaps a bit older) and to see how older boys engage with them. But he’s tentative throughout the film’s many episodes and anecdotes– until the very end when, perhaps emboldened by his mother, he exudes confidence.