Few directors have portrayed the agonies and epiphanies of growing up as poetically—and scandalously—as Louis Malle. Laced with autobiographical details, Murmur of the Heart; Lacombe, Lucien; and Au revoir les enfants tell stories of youth, set against the tumult of World War II and postwar France. Controversial, tragic, amusing, and poignant, these three films are not just coming-of-age stories but the director’s ongoing response to a world gone wrong, revealing his true nature as rebel.