Milou En Mai (May Fools) (1990)

The opening frame of a swarm of buzzing bees is almost a prophetic image of how old Milou's (Michel Piccoli) plush, countryside family home would look soon after. His much older mother dies suddenly, leaving him alone with a faithful old maid Adele. A funeral is planned within the next two days. The closest family members turn up one by one, each bringing with them their own sets of surprises or extended family members.

Set during the month of a massive civil unrest in France, May 1968, Louis Malle's "May Fools" (1990) is a brazenly funny, satirical drama revolving around a dysfunctional family brought together after a long time, for a solemn occasion. Only the sanctity of the funeral is soon diluted, as the reunion turns into a daytime picnic followed by a nighttime misadventure, with clashing egos exposing their underlying pretensions, damaged relationships, and growing insecurities.

The script written by Malle and the great Jean-Claude Carrière is razor sharp, with its biting humour, intelligent, well-timed dialog, and an eclectic bunch of interesting characters to boot. It is fascinating how likeable all of these characters are, despite the blatantly presented fact that they are in no way perfect, and in fact, downright eccentric to the extent of being revolting. All of these characters have diverse traits, all off-the-wall in their own way, but intriguing, nevertheless.

A family that appears close-knit on the surface begins to expose cracks within, that widen over the period of these three days. External forces, not limited to the socio-political turmoil, of course, aggravate matters, as the funeral parlour workers go on strike. The stay of the family members is extended, leaving them more time to spend with each other, much to their reluctance.

Notable is how, the historic event serves entirely as a backdrop while the family gathering and the drama that ensues becomes the focal point. Events are sometimes shocking in how bold they are, even the verbal exchange between characters. It is all, however, delivered with a buoyant, comic tone, thereby alleviating the shock value. And therefore, it's not all that eyebrow raising, when the most loyal torchbearer of the family, Milou, the only one who doesn't want to sell the property of the forefathers, exhibits his wildly flirtatious ways, with not only the domestic help (in the presence of his mother's dead body, no less!) but also the wife of his journalist brother. Not explicit, but certainly hinted at, is also his unusual way of looking at his growing granddaughter Françoise, as he gazes at her bare legs, perhaps in a salacious manner or simply in admiration of how fast and big she has grown.

The brother (Michel Duchaussoy) is another looney, who is more interested in the radio announcement of the current affairs than in his dead mother, so much so that he first listens to the radio upon arrival and later sees his dead mother! He is so much in love with the radio, that he is hardly bothered about his brother's open flirting with his wife. Milou's daughter Camille (Miou-Miou) and the niece Claire (Dominique Blanc), are all the more extreme points on the curve; one, a family woman with three children, and a typically neglectful husband, and the other, a lesbian who brings in a much younger lover, only to lose her to one of her cousins.

The cousin appears to be a pseudo-rebel who joins in with the students merely for the thrill, not for the cause. The bourgeois hypocrisies are exposed in the most savage of ways; Camille bawls out loud about how people use her, and Claire first seduces the truck-driver in a fit of jealousy and later rebukes him by reminding him of his socioeconomic stratum!

The rather morbid comedy stems from how these characters gleefully neglect and disrespect the dead body of their mother, even singing and dancing around it in a stone-drunk frenzy! The priest who comes in to administer some last rites just nonchalantly starts talking about the unrest whilst conducting the ritual. The family engages in revelries, and (thankfully interrupted) sexual games, in what looks like a celebration rather than a mourning. Actions and words highly inappropriate for the occasion are openly exchanged, while in a hilarious repeated gag, Françoise asks her grandpa the meaning of the choicest of words that she isn't even supposed to hear.

In the midst of all this, the insensitive progeny squabble about who will take the silver and the furniture, rather than maintain some peace around the house in the final hours leading to the funeral. Their shameful behavior and the pitiable scheme of things is acknowledged in silence by the dead mother who literally shows up by her gravedigger, with a remorseful expression on her face!

A cultural and inherent class divide is showcased with an important twist regarding the maid Adele in how it ruffles a few feathers, and also with the entry of a rather blunt and foul-mouthed truck-driver who is an uninvited, but helpful guest, driving the old lady's grandson safely to the house in the turbulent atmosphere. The truck-driver's rather brash ways are received with a surprising indifference, despite his openly lustful confessions about the women in the house. It's a brilliant juxtaposition of mirroring events on the outside in the city, which is bustling with protests attacking capitalism and the consumerist culture. The workers take down the bourgeoisie with their strikes, while this funeral event serves as a microcosm for the conflict outside with its own share of a class friction.

And it is a mighty entertaining microcosm at that; for at the end of this scathing dramedy, despite all the deplorable behavior that Malle makes us witness, we come out feeling happy and satisfied in the end.


Score: 9/10

Murmur of the Heart (Le Souffle Au Coeur) (1971)

Director Louis Malle looks back on his own growing up years, specifically his teens and comes up with a splendid semi-autobiographical coming-of-age account that is "Murmur of the Heart" (1971). One wonders if it has anything to do with the fact that the film is French, but Malle's handling of some downright scandalous and eyebrow-raising episodes in the film is so delicate and lighthearted, it simply has to be seen to be believed!

It is the 1950s, and 14 year old Laurent Chevalier (Benoît Ferreux) is having a jolly time growing up in his bourgeois family of a well-to-do but curmudgeon father (Daniel Gélin), a Gynecologist by profession and his much younger, comely mother of Italian descent, Clara (Lea Massari). Laurent has two older brothers who keep bullying him and taking his case, but all in a playful way of course. The brothers bond well, the father mostly neglects Laurent, but Clara clearly has him for a favorite. 

There is quite an unrestrained and casual atmosphere in the family. The older sons have rather frank talks with their little brother who claims he is not little anymore. They play around, frolic in bed, discuss and brag about their manhood, and while their parents are away, very openly indulge in booze, smokes and make-out sessions with their friends, even in the presence of their portly, kindly maid Augusta (Ave Ninchi). 

The first half of the film is mostly a chronicling of such events and Laurent's bizarre encounters. Be it his attempts at losing his virginity, at a brothel no less, with the help of his brothers that leads to disastrous results, or the awkward confession session with the hypocritical school priest (Michael Lonsdale) who feels up Laurent's thighs while explaining to him about sin and the vileness of the bodily desires of man! This part does come off as a tad stereotypical. Not all priests have to hit on their choir boys, but it fits well within the context and at a stage when the boys' curiosity about sexual matters is out through the roof.

Malle writes scenes and creates situations which may seem shocking to the prudish, more specifically in the second half which was a subject of some controversy upon the film's release. There are overtones of Laurent's incestuous attraction to his beautiful mother. It is not a lustful attraction per se, but an admiration developed from the warm affection constantly showered by her and of course, the comparatively less age difference between the young mother and her sons. 

It hardly comes off as a lascivious urge, but in fact, only curiosity that makes him watch observantly as his mother takes a bath. Naysayers and conservative folks may be in denial, however, one can't help but think how realistic the events surrounding the boy's psychological development are. In the scheme of things it is completely believable that Laurent, who is the apple of his mother's eye, is constantly showered with exuberant hugs and kisses that perhaps a boy his age may experience differently. The two are in fact, more buddies than a mother-son pair.

Laurent does insist at one point that she should stop treating him like a six year old! So does Father Henri in one scene as he suggests that it is about time his mother started treating him like an adult, given his intelligence. Now whether he says it out of jealousy or genuine concern is another ambiguity quite cleverly thrown in by Malle! It doesn't help matters that Clara has a husband much older, and she does have some flirtatious ways around younger men and is having an affair too, which never comes to light. And that is a good thing, for Malle steers clear of the unnecessary cliches that come with such a revelation and its aftermath in the family. Clara's affair is kept in the background, and all it does is it strengthens the route that eventually leads to the culmination that may have seemed cheap but ends up being tender and affectionate.

It is quite wondrous an achievement the way Malle pulls some of these scenes off. The undercurrents of a fleeting, homosexual attraction experienced by one of the boys toward Laurent and his momentary reciprocation during the boys' camping trip is difficult to miss, yet not taken to levels even remotely explicit. It just comes across as a casual fondness and brushed aside by Laurent as just that, when the boy asks if he could sleep next to him. In fact, the film lends a breezy, comic touch to some of the more bold content thereby ensuring that it makes for a light, entertaining cinematic experience.

Malle's film is an extremely well-balanced and mature examination of a teenaged boy experiencing his sexual awakening. It can also be regarded in part as a satire on the bourgeois lifestyle. A lot of the film's great scenes like the spinach fight are snippets from Malle's own life and they add a nice, warm touch to the film. You may not see many other films in which a mother discusses her adulterous affair with her son and the son listens and empathizes with his mother's boyfriend troubles! Or even find instances in which some older boys ask to get introduced to the protagonist's hot mother, while the son ends up feeling jealous of his mother's growing closeness to them!

None of this, however, seems so earth-shattering given the progression and the manner in which Malle gets us acquainted to his characters. This is where the filmmaker's true genius is revealed. He builds a strong foundation and gradually adds layers in a way that the audiences lap up each succeeding episode with a nonchalance that would otherwise not exist!

Of course, one of the major aspects that makes all this work are the two lead performances. Lea Massari and debutant Benoît Ferreux make the film. It is their fantastic acts that render the special touch that bolster's Malle's film and make it the unique masterwork that it is. Malle is a revered filmmaker and "Murmur of the Heart" is certainly one of the major reasons why he is held in such high esteem.

Score: 10/10

Black Moon (1975)

A lot of avant-garde filmmakers experimented with Lewis Carroll’s classic novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. Some features that come to mind are Jaromil Jires’ wonderful film, “Valerie and her Week of Wonders”, Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” and Jan Svankmajer’s “Alice”. Louis Malle’s surrealist experimental film “Black Moon” could very well fit into this category of the directors’ own interpretation of the novel giving it their own “free form”!

Written by Louis Malle in collaboration with Joyce Bunuel (Luis Bunuel's daughter-in-law!) and directed by Louis Malle, “Black Moon” is devoid of any central plot as such. Set against a post-apocalyptic backdrop of a “war between the sexes”, this film simply chronicles the weird happenings as experienced (or imagined?) by a teenage girl, Lily (Cathryn Harrison)  who has narrowly escaped being killed by men seemingly out to wipe out the entire women populace! Having been lucky to have escaped, she just speeds away in her car deep into the woods only to come across an isolated property, a huge manor house and its strange inhabitants. The house is dwelled in by a cantankerous, bed ridden old lady (Therese Giehse) with a weird fetish, who talks to animals, especially a big rat-like creature “Humphrey” in some language that’s gibberish, and every once in a while speaks on a radio kept by her bed. There is a brother-sister pair around the house to take care of stuff. They don’t speak a single word. They only hum some songs as they work around the property. Some snakes tucked away in unlocked drawers also share the space with them!

The most bizarre of all though, is the presence of about half a dozen naked children running around playing with a gigantic pig; they keep interrupting Lily’s path every time she chases a not-so-graceful Unicorn that seems to be a regular visitor around the property…..

Everything sounds very interesting for film lovers who love their films rife with surreal dreamscapes but frankly it doesn’t go much beyond this. The film surely holds our interest for most of its modest running time of about 95 minutes thanks to the splendid camerawork by the genius cinematographer Sven Nykvist and the rather awe-inspiring sound design. In a fabulous close-up of a crawling centipede, you can actually “hear” the little thing crawl on a surface! In another hilarious scene (repeated twice), amidst near dead silence, a pig sitting at a table, apparently guarding a large glass of milk kept at the center of the table, lets out a loud grunt every time Lily gulps milk from it!

These are just some of the really jaw-droppingly outlandish scenes in the film and there are a good number of them. There are some scenarios that are so absurd, they are comical and that’s a good thing, but after a while the same devices are recycled instead of bringing in some novelty factor. Once one gives in to the idea of absurdist fiction, then there are no limits to what one can do! But surrealism not being Malle’s forte, he leaves a little to be desired in his product. If a premise that automatically creates endless possibilities starts to get repetitive then there is a problem somewhere! Malle even tries to infuse some allegorical allusions to the Indian epic Ramayana (a particular episode involving “Jatayu”, the demi-god possessing the form of a vulture, who tries to save Sita from Raavana’s clutches!) but it doesn’t necessarily create a huge impact in the overall proceedings.

This is an English language film and Cathryn Harrison, portraying Lily clearly speaks in English. However Therese Giehse’s (Old Lady) speech sounds dubbed in English and her lip movement is ridiculously out of sync. It is unclear whether this was intentional or a technical glitch, a bad dubbing job or a bad lip-synching job! At times even Harrison’s dialog seems out of sync. Some of it sounds really dumb as well!

If one thinks from a certain angle, there certainly is an interpretation that gives the happenings on screen some meaning and a vaguely fitting explanation which could even reflect religious themes! I would not like to adhere to any theory or interpretation though. I think it is safe to assume that Louis Malle didn’t want to make a deeply thought-provoking or metaphorical film. He merely wanted to compile some dream-like visions into a motion picture laced with themes of civil war and futuristic dystopia and a teenager’s coming-of-age, and that’s fair enough. He wanted his film to be more a visual experience than a cerebral puzzle. Only Luis Bunuel or David Lynch could’ve done a much better job with the material at hand.

Score: 7/10.