Le souffle au coeur (1971)
(Dearest Love)
Country: FR/IT/GER
Technical: col 118m
Director: Louis Malle
Cast: Léa Massari, Benoit Ferreux, Daniel Gélin
Synopsis:
An intellectually gifted but emotionally naïve adolescent boy receives scant attention from his father and all the wrong education from his tearaway elder brothers. He takes refuge in his attachment to his mother, which gets confused with his sexual awakening.
Review:
So honest and horrendous a view of family life in the middle classes has rarely been put on screen, shadowing as it does the passage to maturity of a whole society in the 1950s (loss of Vietnam, emergence of youth culture, enshrined in the jazz Laurent listens to and which was so dear to Malle, and mistrust of national institutions). In this light the mother-son attachment seems less transgressive, since it comes over as a flight from an adult reality which is seen to be unauthentic. The title refers to a medical complaint (a heart murmur) from which Malle himself suffered (it is his first truly personal work, cobbled together from family recollections and the idea of filming Bataille's Ma Mère). The film was also Malle's second brush with controversy (after Les Amants), since the incestuous aspect was not addressed other than by the parties concerned and was followed by a scene which appeared to cement family unity.
(Dearest Love)
Country: FR/IT/GER
Technical: col 118m
Director: Louis Malle
Cast: Léa Massari, Benoit Ferreux, Daniel Gélin
Synopsis:
An intellectually gifted but emotionally naïve adolescent boy receives scant attention from his father and all the wrong education from his tearaway elder brothers. He takes refuge in his attachment to his mother, which gets confused with his sexual awakening.
Review:
So honest and horrendous a view of family life in the middle classes has rarely been put on screen, shadowing as it does the passage to maturity of a whole society in the 1950s (loss of Vietnam, emergence of youth culture, enshrined in the jazz Laurent listens to and which was so dear to Malle, and mistrust of national institutions). In this light the mother-son attachment seems less transgressive, since it comes over as a flight from an adult reality which is seen to be unauthentic. The title refers to a medical complaint (a heart murmur) from which Malle himself suffered (it is his first truly personal work, cobbled together from family recollections and the idea of filming Bataille's Ma Mère). The film was also Malle's second brush with controversy (after Les Amants), since the incestuous aspect was not addressed other than by the parties concerned and was followed by a scene which appeared to cement family unity.
(Dearest Love)
Country: FR/IT/GER
Technical: col 118m
Director: Louis Malle
Cast: Léa Massari, Benoit Ferreux, Daniel Gélin
Synopsis:
An intellectually gifted but emotionally naïve adolescent boy receives scant attention from his father and all the wrong education from his tearaway elder brothers. He takes refuge in his attachment to his mother, which gets confused with his sexual awakening.
Review:
So honest and horrendous a view of family life in the middle classes has rarely been put on screen, shadowing as it does the passage to maturity of a whole society in the 1950s (loss of Vietnam, emergence of youth culture, enshrined in the jazz Laurent listens to and which was so dear to Malle, and mistrust of national institutions). In this light the mother-son attachment seems less transgressive, since it comes over as a flight from an adult reality which is seen to be unauthentic. The title refers to a medical complaint (a heart murmur) from which Malle himself suffered (it is his first truly personal work, cobbled together from family recollections and the idea of filming Bataille's Ma Mère). The film was also Malle's second brush with controversy (after Les Amants), since the incestuous aspect was not addressed other than by the parties concerned and was followed by a scene which appeared to cement family unity.