Cuento de invierno

The second of Eric Rohmer's Four Seasons. This is a beautiful movie. Low-keyed, quite, slow- but not at all too slow. Simple story with complex characters; Interesting to the end. I can't wait to see the other "seasons".

It has been a pleasure catching up with the eminently civilised cinema of Eric Rohmer recently. He is a director who needs the re-see treatment every so often as many of his works tend to blur into one because of their similarity. Of course the beach ones look different from the urban ones but it is sometimes difficult to distinguish one group of characters talking around a table from another doing the same thing unless one knows the films really well. Although there is no denying that Rohmer is the master observer of the minutiae of middle class French everyday living, I find my response to his works differs considerably from film to film, always according to the degree with which he interests me in his characters. In one important sense however all his films are worth watching and that is the skill with which he evokes the most marvellous naturalistic acting from his actors, particularly from young women. Even a film as tiresome as "The Aviator's Wife" is redeemed by the the masterly performance by the young girl the hero meets in a Paris park. For anyone wishing to embark on an exploration of Rohmer, the tetralogy of films of the four seasons made during the late 'eighties and 'nineties will provide a particularly fertile experience. The characters in "Spring" and "Autumn" are admittedly the least interesting and I find the viticulturist and her matchmaking friend in "Autumn" rather tiresome. The young man holidaying in "Summer" has dilemmas in his relationships with three girls about which one really does not care, but the film is most agreeable to watch. If these three films represent Rohmer at this more mundane, "Un Conte d'hiver" is a different matter altogether. There is nothing discursive in a work in which the director seems to have balanced form and content perfectly. It is like a sonata form movement in music with a long central development bordered by a short exposition and recapitulation. In the opening, young man meets young woman on holiday. It is the passion of a lifetime that ends with the misadventure of a confused address. Unable to find her child's father the woman resigns herself to trying to find love in other men. She vacillates between a hairdresser and a librarian, nice enough people but we know as she does deep down that there can be no substitute for that idyllic holiday encounter. Our self identification with the dilemma of the young woman, marvellously played by Charlotte Very, is so acute that the resolution when it eventually arrives literally made me shout and cry for joy. In "Conte d'Hiver" Rohmer has given us one of cinema's great feel-good factor films to stand alongside "It's a Wonderful Life" and "The Quiet Man".

As he grew older it seemed veteran screen-writer and director Eric Rohmer grew a little more romantic and a little less cynical of life and love. His most famous work, the "Six Moral Tales" of the late 60s are expose's of human failings, pomposity and self obsession. Most of the characters are deeply flawed and many, though fascinating in their way, are distinctly hard to like or forgive. In the "Proverbs & Comedies" series of the 80s , the tales of life are a little softer, lighter, the characters more sympathetic and once the 1990's arrive and Rohmer's new "Four Seasons" series finds it feet, that trend has developed further.

The FOUR SEASONS stories carry a little more plot and rely less on the fairly heavy philosophy and religious conviction one would have encountered in MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S for example. There is hope where there had been despair.

CONTE D'HIVER is a bitter sweet tale of pretty young hairdresser Felicie and the aftermath of a brief passionate affair with the charming Charles. The result is that she bears his daughter but accidentally loses contact with him before he is aware of this. Life for Filicie is then a matter of putting up with a string of second-best lovers in the vain hope that Charles will somehow re- establish contact.

The action flits between Paris and provincial Nevers and as always the people the dialogue and the direction are wonderfully natural. The cinematography and editing are spare and unobtrusive and the acting is superb. There is one sequence, a lengthy scene in which Felicie watches , and is moved by, a stage production of a Shakespeare play that drags on far to long but otherwise this films almost skips along compared to some of the directors previous works, where the pace is always very measured and very slow. In all, a delightful film with a good cast headed by the attractive Charlotte Very, one of several excellent young actresses Rohmer cast around this time (Amanda Langlet and Emanuelle Chaulet being the others that spring to mind). Recommended

I just got a chance to see this movie after seeing all other Rohmer's movies I could get my hands on. After seeing it, I must say it's a superb Rohmer, one of his best, certainly the most accomplished of his Four Seasons, highly reminiscent of My Night With Maud, which still remains my favorite film of the perpetually youthful director. Here you will also find a philosophical discussions on the nature of beauty, love, Pascal's wager (familiar item for a Rohmerian, isn't it?), discussion on personal ('intimate') vs. Catholic faith, the immortality of soul. Of course, the heavy doses of philosophy are beautifully integrated into the film, just like in Maud. These discussions seem organical, natural -- the characters really mean what they say here. Like one character said to the main heroine, "You're articulate, because you let your feelings talk" and "I love you because I can read your heart", even if the heroine seemingly has a change of heart every 5 minutes :)

I must applaud the lead actress(who's also a great beauty) for her heartfelt, genuine performance. I felt like I knew this woman somewhere before, that I could understand her every action and her every thought. The film is also bittersweet, like a many Rohmer films, yet in this film the melancholy feeling is more pronounced, somewhere on par with 'My Night with Maud'. It also reminded me of Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise"; this film beautifully depicted what feelings Linklater's Jesse and Celine might've had during those long 9 years of separation -- the feelings of longing, of hope, of great joy they'd find in meeting each other again, of "the joy so great it'd be worth giving your life for", in the main heroine's words.

What else to say -- I loved these people, they felt real, genuine, and above all hopeful and blessed by love. I loved Felicie and her absent Charles as much as I loved Rohmer's Maud and Jean-Louis, Linklater's Jesse and Celine, David Lean's Laura and Alec -- that is to say a lot. By the end of the movie they've become my friends.

A most brilliant, brilliant movie. Rohmer here exhibits nothing but true mastery in this most insightful work on the power of love over all else. This is a movie for romantics, dreamers and those who have known what it is to live for love.

Being "a Rohmer", the movie is by no means fast paced but as each minute passes you lose track of time as you become ever more consumed in the story; and it's a story whose tension almost effortlessly builds as the movie progresses; fulfilled in part by Rohmer's brilliant direction but also by the exceptional performance of Charlotte Very. Her acting in this movie is so brilliant that it's sometimes difficult to recall that you are actually watching a fictional movie and not a fly on the wall treatise on the nature of love that never dies. The question one must repeatedly wonder concerns the nature of love and more particularly whether one can ever love other persons the same way you loved your first? Whether your views change or not from watching this movie, it would be difficult not to be moved by its tale. All I can say is that by the film's ending I really was hungry for more - which rarely happens to me when watching movies! That being said, this is definitely not a movie for everyone: If your "top ten" includes Transformers, 300, Fight Club then you should steer well clear of Conte D'Hiver. The action in this movie is only of the psychological sort. Rohmer fans will (needless to say) be instant converts. But if you enjoyed movies as diverse as Before Sunrise, or even Casablanca you'll certainly not want to miss Conte D'Hiver/A Winter's Tale. Without a moment's hesitation, I give it 9/10. And so should you! Please watch it & see why...