Avant l'hiver

I saw this film at the Leiden film festival 2013 (LIFF). This could have been the umpteenth story about a middle aged man courting a younger woman, thereby endangering not only his marriage but also risking the health of his patients while slacking off his daily job as a surgeon. But luckily it is much more, due to some complications interwoven in the script that make it interesting nevertheless.

The daily package of red roses that are delivered throughout the running time of the film, seems important and thus are we eager all the time to know who is behind it. In the end we still wonder who is sending the roses, however, but it does not really matter in hindsight as many other sub-plots take over and keep us interested.

A possible minus point is the shallow role of the surgeon's wife. She has typically not enough on her hands other than waiting for her husband to come home. Her garden is her only daily occupation that keeps her from complete boredom, so it seems. I had assumed more initiative from her side, as she is obviously not the unlearned and meek kind of woman.

All in all, I can only moderately recommend this film. It is not a total failure, however, due to several sub-plots that keeps us interested. But that is all there is. This film ranked a moderate 26th place (out of 55) for the audience award.

This film has many fine elements, but suffers from the same ennui as the couple it portrays. I picked this up at my library, and knew immediately I had seen it before, but couldn't remember the end, and had to ride the "fast forward" to get through it! It didn't get better with a second viewing! A bored neurosurgeon "hits a rough patch" with his trophy wife, who sublimates her loneliness with her trophy home and garden! It reminds me of a flaccid remake of Haneke's "Cache", with Auteuil reprising his role as the stone-walling husband, who is smitten by a young Moroccan woman, who may be stalking him with roses instead of surveillance! Kristin Scott Thomas plays the long-suffering wife, instead of Juliette Binoche.

The film also has a couple of disparate elements that could easily have been cut, mainly Lucie's psychotic sister, and a Polish patient's Holocast survival story.

This is a fine distraction, if you have nothing else to watch!

They could've made so much more with this story, but it has no direction, it tries to be profound, but it ultimately fails to. The ending leaves you nowhere, and you ask why you've seen this film? For the cinematics? For the actors? Hmm... For sure not for the incomplete and lack of depth of the script.

Philippe Claudel's film 'Before the Winter Chill' begins as if it's going to be a drama about a stalker. It then changes tack, and becomes more of a story about a middle aged man becoming involved with a younger woman. He's not exactly looking for an affair, but his interest in her clearly stems from unhappiness in his marriage, which obviously does not benefit from his behaviour. Yet his "care" for the girl is superficial; his real interest is in the effect she is having on him, and he misses things he might have observed. Yet just as this plotline plays out to its conclusion, the movie reveals a final twist. The problem is that all three stories seem weak and underdeveloped; the strength of feelings on display never quite sufficient to wholly motivate the plot. It's not implausible; but its more a film about the absence of feelings, than the presence of them.

small domestic scenes from a family's every day life. a meeting. and image of a profound crisis. a film who could have different definitions. thriller, crime, art film, psychological. but who remains admirable work for the impeccable performance of Kristin Scott Thomas and Daniel Auteuil. for the image of reality beyond the words. for a form of delicacy in define the events like a painting in water colors. a film about values and about fear to lost sense of life. a film who is really seductive not exactly for story but for details. the last scene is a good example. not different by many films with similar theme, it is really beautiful for the doses of drama and for the inspired use of silence. a film about a family. its crisis. and the hope.