Review of A Heart in Winter

Not many movies can draw a parallel between music and love with such delicate refinement as Sautet's Un Coeur en Hiver. The film revolves around an unspoken unrequited love between Stephane (Auteuil), a violin craftsman, and the beautiful Camille (Béart), a violin virtuoso and also his patron's lover. For some reason, either out of loyalty to his friend, fear of commitment or a conviction that he does not deserve anything as perfect, or maybe a mixture of all three, Stephane pulls away. He not only pulls away, he does it with such ruthlessness that comes in complete contradiction with his character. A character that holds a violin as if it were the most fragile item in the world, and yet does not hesitate to shatter a woman's heart by simply saying, "I have decided to seduce you without loving you." But in the end, as he himself realizes, he is only destroying himself. This movie makes me fall in love with French cinema all over again.