I Remember Mamma

By * Jay Cocks

French film makers appear to have an abiding and unbounded affection for childhood recollection. The results have sometimes been memorable (Franc,ois Truffaut's The 400 Blows), occasionally even classic (Jean Vigo's Zero for Conduct). Such adventures into the past require a good deal of perspective if they are to be anything more than sentimental souvenirs. This quality is in short supply in Louis Malle's reminiscence, Murmur of the Heart.

Laurent (Benoit Ferreux) is the youngest son of a prosperous Dijon gynecologist (Daniel Gelin) and his Italian wife (Lea Massari). Laurent's brothers are well-bred juvenile delinquents, but despite a pronounced affection for mischief, Laurent is different. Hardly into adolescence, he reads Camus and writes essays on existentialism that vex his schoolmaster-priest (Michel Lonsdale). Father Henri further advances his pupil's education by making tentative homosexual advances during confession, and Laurent's brothers chip in to buy him a bout with a tolerant whore. Laurent--perhaps because of all this frenetic activity--develops a heart murmur, which requires prolonged and restful treatment.

In the company of his mother, Laurent is installed at an elegant rest home. They share the same room, and eventually the same secrets. Laurent has long known of Mamma's extramarital affair; when it ends he comforts her. She in turn gives him advice about his girl friends. Mother and son confess their admiration for each other, their dependency on each other, their love for each other, which one night becomes passionately incestuous. Next morning, after Laurent has sneaked out of his mother's bed to pass the remainder of the night with a girl friend, father and brothers appear. Tousled, shoes in hand, Laurent is observed by all coming in the door. A moment of tension between mother and son. Then the brothers, understanding only half of what they see. begin to laugh. Mamma giggles, father permits himself to smile, and Laurent, sheepish and relieved, joins in the merriment.

Malle manages the technical side of his scenario with facility. There are funny moments in the classroom and at home when Laurent and his brothers torment the family maid. Malle, however, seeks to banish the Oedipal shadows that cloud his story by turning almost everything into comedy. Instead of forming an ironic counterpoint to the dark psychology of the story, safe and easy laughter trivializes it, stifling the pain of true recall.

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