Murmur of the Heart

According to Pauline Kael, "what makes this movie so different from other movies about bourgeois life is that the director, Louis Malle, sees not only the prudent, punctilious surface but the volatile and slovenly life underneath. He looks at this bourgeois bestiary and sees it as funny and appalling and also - surprisingly - hardy and happy. It is perhaps the first time on film that anyone has shown us the bourgeoisie enjoying its privileges." Also for Kael, "it's a movie not about how one has been scarred but about how one was formed."

During the chess match, the boys are sitting on what should be the spectator sides of the board, rather than the player sides. It appears that the chessmen were set up along the files rather than the ranks. (The lower right hand corner squares are black, when they should be white.)

Featured in Arena: My Dinner with Louis (1984)