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Arcand is working at the height of his powers. This story is effective at an emotional level that we normally associate with "Realism" and yet much like Almodovar's work there is nothing realistic about it - but a merging of the fantastic, and the shadow of realism. This is the kind of storytelling that require a wide vocabulary, and Arcand has it. Like his Decline of the American Empire, this film requires that we look at human beings as archetypes with all their contradictions, and not stereotypes. The plot if there is one becomes superfluous - what is achieved is transcendence.

This is a film that defies all expectation. It seduces you with humor, and craft. The performances, especially Bana's, are absolutely brilliant. This is a filmmaker with an extraordinary sense of tone. I look forward to what he will do next, and I am a Bana fan for life.

'Murmur of the Heart' is an experience that sneaks up on you like the combined years of one's youth. The subject matter is what the repressed might reductively characterize as simple incest. That is NOT what this film is about. It is about the elastic moment of adolescence. The strange, ugly, and beautiful contradictions of familial intimacy. A boy deperate to taste the pleasures of being a man - while stuck in an awkward inbetween physical, and pyschic geography. This is one of the strongest films in all of French cinema.