'Murmur of Heart

Boy-Mother Plot

Is Forced, Sirupy

By Emerson Batdorff

Movies that are buried in forced charm always end up by being terribly tedious. In "Murmur of the Heart" even the sinning is tedious. One had thought better f the French.

"Murmur of the Heart" ("Le Souffle au Coeur" in French) deals mostly with the strange relationship of a 15-year-old boy with his mother. But before we get to the nub of that relationship we are treated to a great deal of horseplay by the boy and his brothers.

It is told all icky. Laugh with the boy as he steals a phornograph record. Thrill with him as he gets drunk. Squirm with him as a homosexual priest makes advances. Be chagrined with him as his brothers take him to a prostitute and then interrupt proceedings.

YOU CAN FEEL the boyish charm, the warm humanity the movie's makers are trying to inculcate, sloshing around your ankles as you sog through.

Toward the end, the boy

seduces his mother while

'Murmur of the Heart'

Heights and Westwood

Written and directed by Louis Malle, produced by Vincent Malle and Claude Nedjar. Adults only. 118 minutes. In French with English subtitles.

Lea Massari

Daniel Gelin

Clara Laurent ............................................Benoit Ferreux The Father Marc Thomas Father Henri Augusta Freda

........................................................Marc Winocourt Fablen Ferreux

...............................Michel Lonsdale Ave Ninchi ....Glla von Welterhausen

she is semicomatose from overenjoying Bastille Day. She tells him they both will treasure the moment and to say no more about it.

"Murmur of the Heart” goes a long way toward proving the Batdorff theory of movie eating is valid in France as it is in America. The Batdorff theory of movie eating holds that the more the people eat on screen, the less interesting the movie is.

THIS IS BECAUSE an artistically poverty-stricken writer, having a lot for his people to say and no reason for them to say it continually puts them at the dining table.

In Murmur of the Heart" they not only eat breakfast, lunch and dinner,

they also snack.

Most of the minor performances in the film are excellent. Of the major performances, only that of Lea Massari as the earthy mother is at all convincing. Benoit Ferreux plays the concupiscent boy as though someone off camera were giving him hand-and-arm signals.