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Murmur of the Heart
Le Souffle au cœur
1971 118 min France, Germany, Italy R 12+
★8.0
Drama, Comedy
Director: Louis Malle
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Description
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.
US Gross:
$1.16M
Starring
Lea Massari
Actor
Benoît Ferreux
Actor
Daniel Gélin
Actor
Awards
Academy Awards 1973
— Best Adapted Screenplay (Unpublished Material or True Facts)
Cannes Film Festival 1971
— Palme d'Or
Key opinion
The film is a controversial coming-of-age story set in 1954 France that captures the atmosphere of the era through a detailed bourgeois portrait. While praised for its technical polish and evocative setting, it remains polarizing due to its depiction of incest and a fragmented narrative structure.
| Production | The 1954 French setting and bourgeois atmosphere are vividly and detailedly reconstructed | |
| Direction | Louis Malle delivers a professionally polished and atmospheric execution | |
| Acting | While some find the performances charismatic and unforgettable, others criticize the acting as vulgar or the characters as plasticky | |
| Screenplay | The narrative structure is divisive, with some praising its witty and delicate character studies while others find it a thin collection of disconnected episodes lacking a central thread | |
| Theme | The film's treatment of incest and sexual awakening is viewed by some as an honest, candid exploration of nature, but others condemn it as repulsive and gratuitous |