Cheap 3 Films by Louis Malle - Criterion Collection (DVD) (Louis Malle) Price

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Customer Reviews of 3 Films by Louis Malle - Criterion Collection

wonderful, chilling films that are so un-Hollywood
These are dark psychological films that examine seemingly normal people in the most unusual circumstances, from a vacation of sexual awakening to the choices that individuals made during WWII. <
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>I was utterly rivetted by all three of these films when I saw them. Murmur of the Heart is about a boy and his mother, who have gone on vacation alone in the South of France. He is an intelligent if callow mama's boy and his mother, who is an extraordinary though aging beauty, is seeking something she can never quite grasp in her many extra-marital affairs. There is an aching sexual tension between them, a source of the kinds of secrets that take years to resolve on a psychiatrst's couch. It is a genuine masterpiece sure to generate controversy. <
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>Lacombe Lucian is about a chamelion-like man who becomes a collaborator after being rejected by the French resistence (I reveal nothing here). It is about how sleaze, in the wrong circumstances, can flower into the greatest evil. Though it is the weakest of the bunch, it is still a 5-star piece of work. <
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>The third film, Au Revoir les Enfants, is a poignant film about a friendship that grows across a cultural divide, jew v. catholic. The setting is a boarding school during the war, and the jewish boy is a fugitive from the German occupiers, who would send him to a concentration camp in an instant. Slowly, we watch the tension and fear grow, along with the love between the two boys, one of whom is playing with power in the most childish ways. I wept at the end of the film. <
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>If anything could convince us capitalists (and I am one) that the "market" (i.e. Hollywood) does not always result in "optimal" results (i.e. what sells in mass distribution is "best"), we should watch these films: they are from a protected market and would never have been made by a machine such as Hollywood; they are lower budget, and do not asire to be blockbusters. Yet their quality is so high that they are a gift to art of the ages and will live on as some of the finest fictional work of the 20C in my humble opinion. <
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>Warmly recommended.