Le souffle au coeur

"A souffle of a movie!"

Oct 17 1971 R 1h 58m
Comedy, Drama

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.

Plot

This is a jolly coming-of-age story about a 14-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.

Written by

Louis Malle

Directed by

Louis Malle

Cast

Lea Massari, Benoît Ferreux, Daniel Gélin

Crew

View crew

Production Countries

Italy, Germany, France

Production Companies

Franz Seitz Filmproduktion, Vides Cinematografica, Nouvelles Éditions de Films (NEF), Marianne Productions

Languages

Français

Awards

Nominated for 1 Oscar. 2 wins & 3 nominations total

Scores
# of Votes
11,568
Average Rating
7.5 out of 10
Metascore
NA
Popularity
NA