Customer Reviews

A Tale of Winter [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This story, set in a misty, rain-soaked Paris in mid-winter, is about Felicie
(Charlotte Very) an attractive but confused young woman who having had a passionate holiday romance with a handsome stranger five years before, can still not think seriously about any-one else. And even though she knows only his first name, Charles (Frederic van den Driessche), and has not seen or heard anything of him since (because she foolishly gave him a wrong address) she still hopes to come across him in the street and to introduce to him his pretty little daughter Elise (Ava Loraschi.).

She has two current boy-friends, Loic (Herve Furic), and Maxence
(Michael Voletti), competing for her affections and wanting to marry her, and both show endless patience in listening to her obsessive thoughts about Charles and to how she cannot ever love them the way she still loves him.

She is an ordinary girl, while Loic is an intellectual, and having to listen to the boring conversations he and his friends indulge in makes her feel small, and realise eventually they are not suited. And so she leaves him to go off to another town, Nevers, to live with Maxence and work in his impressive hairdressing salon. But she has been there only a few days when she begins to have doubts: she finds that Elise doesn't like it because the flat has no garden, and that she doesn't like it because, on just one occasion, Maxence calls her "The boss's wife.". And so she returns to Paris and to Loic. I spent the rest of the film feeling sorry for good-natured Maxence, left alone with his shattered hopes in his empty flat when he thought he had just achieved his dream of a lifetime. No further mention is made of him and no further thought given to him poor bloke.

Loic, having just been rejected for another man and told he is not so well loved as the mysterious Charles, shows great fortitude and forgiveness by placidly accepting the lesser role of mere friend. She tells him later that the real reason she left Nevers, was because while praying one day in a church a conviction had come upon her, like a revelation, that she must leave. This conviction is reinforced later while watching a production of Shakespeare's
"A Winter's tale." in which an act of Faith works a miracle and brings a statue to life. She thinks that if she can only have such Faith, then it might also work a miracle for her and bring Charle back to her. And having such Faith is a "wager" that cannot be lost, because even if her belief turns out to be false and she never meets him, she will still have the hope and comfort that Faith brings.

As always in a Rohmer film, the characters are very natural and real. Felecie seems to give little thought to her appearance and is nearly always to be seen very casually dressed in a colourless anorak with the hood up, her hair loose, and her scarf pulled round her neck in any old way. And she seems always on the move. We see her getting off and on buses and trains and walking the streets always accompanied by her sweet little daugher Elise - a constant reminder of her lost love. In this way we see a good deal of Paris and Nevers which adds a lot to the interest and documentary quality of the film.

For some odd reason - perhaps because he likes women so much - Rohmer's films always seem to centre on the female of the species. Very rarely, if ever, is the male point of view given any prominence. And so it is with this film.

This film is loosely based on Shakespeare's _A Winter's Tale_, and Rohmer does a good job of capturing the essence and the haunting qualities of the original play. Ever wonder about a lost love, or a missed opportunity? The bulk of this film is about someone who thinks she's known true love, but is beginning to lose faith. Should she give up on a love that seems a dream in the dark light of a cold winter day?

"Tale of winter" ("Compte d'hiver") is part of Eric Rohmer's "Tales of the four seasons", and probably my favourite film by this director.

The main character is Felicie (Charlotte Véry), a young woman that had a beautiful summer affair with Charles (Frédéric van den Driessche) during her holidays. They want to meet again, but due to a mistake that Felicie makes, that doesn't happen.

Five years after that holidays, we see that Felicie has a tangible way to remember Charles, her little daughter (Ava Loraschi). Felicie lives with her mother and her daughter in Paris, and has two lovers. She can't decide whether she wants to be with Maxence (Michael Voletti), a hairdresser, or to Loic (Hervé Furic), an intellectual. The real reason for her lack of commitment is that Felicie is still in love with Charles, even though she hasn't seen him in five years. But can she continue loving someone that isn't there for here?

On the whole, I can say that I really liked this movie. I found it engaging, and I liked the long dialogues. Truth to be told, at times Felicie was so indecisive that she made me want to shout "please make up your mind". All the same, the ending of "Tale of winter" more than makes up for that little problem. That is the reason why I strongly recommend this film to you :)

Belen Alcat

This is a thought-provoking movie about not settling for less than true love. Rohmer's depiction of two people meant for each other is powerful in its subtlety. Charles and Felicie's body language, their sheer need to be physically close, their naturalness is awesome. They don't work at love; it just is. An insightful movie.

Tale of Winter is a good effort by Rohmer, though not his best by any means. Basically, the story is about Felicie, a Parisian beautician, who had a torrid romance with a man called Charles during one summer. Unfortunately, at the time of saying goodbye to each other, Felicie inadvertently gave Charles a wrong address, so they are unable to meet again. The movie then moves on to five years later, and what has remained of that romance is a photo of Charles and a five year old daughter born of that fleeting relation. Felicie is at the moment having to decide between two boyfriends: Loic, a Catholic intellectual, or Maxence, a somewhat older hairdresser. She is unconvinced between the two, longing for Charles to reappear in her life, but that would take a miracle, right? Or at least a deus ex machina as in the titular Shakespeare play. Her indecisiveness reminds us of the character played in "Le Rayon Vert" by Marie Riviere (who has a cameo role in a crucial scene here). The problem with this movie is that the protagonist is not very likable. She is pretty, but she is also tiresome and somewhat unstable, and the spectators may at times not be going through very pleasant times. And while there is a happy ending, it's not terribly convincing given the circumstances.

Some may say it's too long (at just over 2 hours, it's long by Rohmer's standards), and those not familiar with his style may well find it boring, but for converts, this is superb Rohmer, focusing here on romantic longing and regret. Classic Rohmer. Originally released in 1990, and very hard to find in the US- best to check Amazon's site in France for this at a reasonable price. Enjoy.

The good things first: this film is a beautifully restructured reconsideration of the Catholic themes of My Night at Maud's as telescoped through the storyline of a stubbornly headstrong young woman with strongly-held romantic ideals (obvious parallels to Beau Mariage). I love how Rohmer still uses settings and colours and modes of transport as extensions of character. Here, the settings are drab working-class homes and apartments, the colours are fittingly dreary browns and greys, hideous carpets and empty bookshelves, and public transport is the norm. So Rohmer was clearly paying attention to detail. All that aside: this is one of the master's most aggravating pictures because, instead of sustaining all of the protagonist's inner doubts to a fever pitch and leaving them sublimely unresolved, as he does in so many other great films, in Winter's Tale, Rohmer facilely suggests that prayer and faith will ultimately be repaid. It's as if Rohmer suddenly found religion, and all the subtle uncertainties are gone. While one reviewer here made an apt comparison to the conclusion of the earlier film Rayon Vert (aka Summer), the uplifting conclusion there was really just a personal epiphany, a common and effective literary device. Here, the conclusion is an improbable confluence of circumstances contrived to reward a most underserving faith, and the only thing in need of uplift was my hanging jaw.

It was with great trepidation that i approched this movie, having seen and liked most of Eric Rohmer's work. Alas his usual magic seems more like a bag o' tricks in this one.
As in some of his better movies,it is again the classic Rohmer's premise of women who will settle for nothing but their idea of the best and their travails in order to get there (even if the getting there doesn't happen as the movie ends) leaving you with ?'s to be sure but also an overall sense of wonder. In the Tale of Winter that premise never really takes off and by the end ditches itself with a trite "happy ending" worthy of Disney.
With so much focus on Felicie who's already self-centered to the max. one can't help but become annoyed by her callousness as she treats everybody who loves her (including her mother) as mere peons in her quest for Charles (her summer fling of 5 years ago) Why is she so infatuated with this guy? no one knows...is it just because of the child?
Now I don't think that the director has to necessarily explain everything about the characters nor do I doubt that there are people like Felicie in real life, but one is more likely to find her in the bored leisure class (the source of most of Rohmer's stories) than enbodied by a working class single mother (even a french one). Not a fair critisism I know, but Mr. Rohmer has accustomed us to a much better kind of cinema verite, working his magic to make us feel like we are eavesdropping on the characters, alas not in Winter.
The New Yorker Video vhs version that I saw was made from a lousy copy of the film. Usually not a very big problem if the movie is more than "screen deep".