User Reviews

This movie was awful. Truly awful. I count myself as an Eric Rohmer fan. I loved My Night with Maude and Claire's Knee. I also like slow, arty movies: Kechiche, Chabrol, the Dardenne brothers, Kieslowski, Inarritu, Farhadi, Tarkovsky are all directors I admire. But this movie was insane. First the plot makes no sense. A young rather stupid (by her own view) woman, Felicie, has an affair one summer with a man, Charles, that, even 5 years later, she is convinced is the love of her life. But she doesn't know his last name? And because of a "slip" she gave him an incorrect for her? Really?

Then skip ahead 5 years. Felicie is torn between 2 lovers: 1 is her hairdresser boss Maxence. The other is an intellectual who works in a library, Loic. She won't truly commit to either of them because she is sure one day Charles will miraculously appear. Meanwhile, she has had a daughter Elise (now 5 years old) by Charles. Her mother generally takes care of Elise. But when Max takes a job in Nevers (they had been in Paris) she impulsively joins him, dragging Elise. along. Then just as impulsively, 2 days later she decides to return to Paris, again dragging Elise along. That poor child.

What was the worst, though, is the pretentious, stilted dialogue. It was so ridiculous and awkward that half the audience was laughing at the movie. And I saw it at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in NYC. Really, I had to review this movie because the 7.3 rating it gets on IMDb is just way too high. Don't put yourself through this movie!!

"A Tale of Winter" is a film that apparently several reviewers really liked here on IMDb. Well, as for me, I hated the film and found the characters to be rather annoying as well as difficult to believe or like.

When the film begins, Félicie is having a brief but wild affair with Charles. They barely know each other--and she doesn't even know his last name. When they depart, he gives her his address and she loses it...and they don't get back together.

Now it's five years later. Félicie has a child and Charles is the absent father. During this interim, two men have fallen for her. However, Félicie is only interested in them as friends and openly tells them both that her heart only belongs to Charles...a guy she barely knew and whose whereabouts are unknown. She also openly admits that she expects that he might just show up in the future and they'll live happily ever after...and because of this she won't commit to another man. As a result, her life and her child's are on hold...waiting and hoping for some miracle.

I found the main character to be incredibly childish and unlikable. She was a hopeless romantic...but also an immature mother and self- absorbed lady. Much of what she says throughout the film is pretentious and banal...particularly when she's trying to sound religious and insightful. Why the men in her life loved her, I have no idea...none...and that is a big weakness of the story. What made all this worse is that the director gave it all a fairy tale like ending. Had she lived waiting and waiting and ultimately wasted her life (like Miss Havisham from "Great Expectations"), I think I would have enjoyed the film much more because it would have seemed real. Instead, the movie seems to give hope to the dopey people of the world...people who refuse to grow up and face reality. Rarely does a film annoy me as much as this one did.

This movie is about faith. It is clear that the man on the first scenes is very similar to JC. Faith is not only believe but vision. Felicie - means Happiness- has already experimented happinesse; it s not something she just believes in. Later, she says: I saw it, i didn't understand it. She doesn t have to understand it because she lived it - no arguing is necessary. During the movie she argues all the time, she has to make choice. But the best way to live is not to have choice "there s no good or bad choice, the best is when you d ont have choice at all". The faith is connected to pre-life platonician remembrance as in Ménon. But also connected to Pascal's "pari". When she goes to Nevers she finally understands that Nevers is also Never - a play on words that english speakers should have understood. She went into a church and "sees" not understands (logicaly) what she has to do. Then a few steps ahead, she made a "pari" as Pascal said: she looses 2 unsatisfying loves for a real one that is just not probable. But notice that she begs the guy to pray for her happinesse (to find the lover). So we may suppose that he did it.

It s indeed a tale - reasons why all the objections about the way she gave a wrong adress miss the point: equal unprobability that she gave a wrong adress and that she finaly finds the guy.

There are many things to notice about this movie related to Pascal.

The scene form Winters tale is just marvelous (Danielle Lebrun!)

Eric Rohmer's film series The Four Seasons Tales resemble his earlier series The Moral Tales in its similar set-ups. In The Four Seasons Tales characters are lead to similar choices of love and moral, that bring up repressed emotions and emotional crises. But in spite of these the right ones "soulmates" find each other. The usual set-up in Eric Rohmer's Moral Tales was that one person loves other, but is tempted by another person. But for one reason or another stays with the first one, or comes back to him/her. This is the set-up A Tale of Winter builds around.

On summer five years ago Félicie (Charlotte Véry) met a man, Charles she fell deeply in love with. She accidentally lost him, in result of giving a wrong address for an unknown reason. Felicie is alone taking care of their child Elise and is in between of two men, she really doesn't love. Because her love against the long lost Charles hasn't disappeared.

The film's story itself is already interesting, but of course when you know the director, it doesn't stop on a good story. A Tale of Winter is slightly based, or actually build around the play by William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale (1611) which is about a dead queen who suddenly comes to life. Eric Rohmer has said that the play inspired him to make the whole series, The Four Seasons Tales. He wanted to make the audience feel like they feel watching Shakespeare's play's ending, to see something dead come to life.

Eric Rohmer's films are always a delight, they usually teach you something new about life and cinema. His films are full of intellectual dialog and moral choices spiced up with mature and intelligent humor. Eric Rohmer just recently passed away on January the 11th, but his films will live forever. When he started his career he proceeded with more determination than anyone by making three film series. The Four Season Tales is his last and it can easily be looked as a reflection of his whole career.

A Tale of Winter as many other films by Rohmer lean on coincidence, the plot of his films is always about coincidence. Something that happens makes to something else to happen, his films include a lot of film philosophy. His earlier film Ma nuit chez Maud (1969, My Night at Maud's) is about the famous Pascal wager: One should always bet on behalf of the existence of God, because that way one cannot lose anything. In A Tale of Winter this wager is also mentioned and is an important part of many discussions.

A very good late film from the French master of cinema. A Tale of Winter is about memory, loneliness, love and the loss of it. It offers some comical and touching situations to the gray everyday Christmas.

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 has 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 remains 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 undecided on whom to choose, longing instead 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 recalls us the character played in "Le Rayon Vert" by Marie Riviere (who has a cameo role in a crucial scene here). The problem 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.

Eric Rohmer's "A Winter's Tale" (1992) is not a credible story for me at all. This is especially so with the heroine Felicie. Rohmer has characters behaving exactly opposite to the way people behave in the Real World yet, even more troubling, he seems to try to convince the viewer that this is, indeed, the way that people really do behave, or at least that it all makes sense somehow.

As someone with a BA/MA in Psychology, my opinion is that the heroine of this story is a mentally ill person. She has been obssessively professing her love for a man with whom she has lost contact five years ago & knew only very briefly anyway, and manipulates and socially abuses two worthy men who express their love for her, in spite of the fact that they both offer her a realistic opportunity for a secure future for both her and her young daughter. What I find even more amazing is that no one in her life suggests that she seek the professional help that she so obviously needs. After my university education, I spent the next 30 years counseling very troubled people, yet I can tell you that I never encountered someone not only as "sick" as this young lady, but who had as little insight into her "sickness" as she did.

The type of deep seated character disorder displayed by our heroine would certainly not have begun with her VERY Brief fling with that now "long lost" lover of five years ago, but would've been evident much earlier, yet nothing of the sort is mentioned. Furthermore, although Felicie does qualify as what some mental health professionals call "the walking wounded" in that she was still able to function in the Real World, there is NO Way that the rest of her life would've been operating as smoothly as portrayed in this film. This is especially so in the bizarre reaction that her two "love interests" Maxence and Loic have to her in spite of the fact that she abuses her relationship with both of them, tells them both that she is still too in love with "long lost" Charles to have a committed relationship with them, and discusses her love for her "long lost" Charles openly with them. In the Real World, any self respecting man would've promptly "kicked her to the curb", yet Rohmer has both of them SO Committed to her that it is SHE who ends her relationship with them.

That the Totally UNREAL ending to this tale has Felicie accidentally run into Charles somewhere in the vast metropolis of Paris, and immediately rekindle their love affair, as if those "missing" five years never even happened is just from OUTER Space for me. From my vantage, Rohmer is trying to show us that the mentally ill behavior of Felicie was not "mentally ill" after all, but some kind of "unconditional faith" that can "make miracles happen". Give Me A Break, OK??? That's SO Far in Outer Space that Hubble can't even see THAT far. The ending is little more than a cheap literary "trick" to attempt to salvage a poorly thought out screenplay.

In his favorable review of this film, Roger Ebert justifies the anti-logic underlying the storyline as typical of Rohmer putting little importance in the storyline of all his films. However, that doesn't "wash" with me because there is a difference between a weak, or even an incoherent story, as opposed the Unreality that I find here. Furthermore, Rohmer makes a poor effort to use this non-logical storyline as a platform for some abstract level of meaning or symbology. True enough, there are plenty of films in the Horror, Science Fiction, and Avant Garde genres that are even more unreal than this film. However, the filmmakers in those films don't make the pitiful and pathetic effort that Rohmer does here in apparently attempting to convince the viewer that Unreality is indeed somehow Real. joseph.kulik.919@gmail.com

Rohmer and his Racinian dialogs remind that persons still exist who make movies as objects destined to a higher appreciation. I am pretty certain that his movie requires more than one viewing. I have found it interesting, nuanced and well—handled. Rohmer's movies are the true hallmarks of contemporary cinema; It is true that today I have sipped CONTE D'HIVER as an antidote; there was a time when, able to like Fellini, Kitano and Griffi, I disliked a Rohmer movie (as well as movies by Mrs. Duras, Tati—and the fact is that I did not identify their cause as art's own)—but nowadays I feel so offended and sickened by the current rubbish and so wholly Europhile that I resorted to Rohmer's outing as to an antidote, a balsam. I had this feeling of approval—yes, this is the way, that is how one should film …. I sipped it, I got it approvingly.

Rohmer and his uniquely charming art are an encouragement and a substantial achievement for those who seek an adult art;as a movie buff, he had earned my respect long ago. Now, he has earned my esteem as a director as well.

I would suggest a small history lesson—the very man who made CONTE D'HIVER (and, incidentally, gave me a renewed taste for the Shakespearian play) is the same who praises Hawks and considers him an essential director; so much about the simplistic dichotomy operated between schools, etc.. So, feel proud to exalt Hawks' movies—why, this is the sanest thing for a Rohmer fan!

There are only a few times I been as moved by a film as this one.

Here are the few:

1. Rocky...at the end when loses to Apollo (RIP) but calls for Adrian.

2. The Messenger...when Joan Of Arc tells the soldiers to "fight for me!"and charges into battle

3. The Greatest Story Ever Told...when I was a little kid and saw Jesus crucified.

Now this one is added to the list. It is a film about two people who meet on a vacation and share a passionate relationship over that brief time period. By a simple mistake they lose contact...and the woman had his child without him knowing it.

She goes through two different relationships but can never get over this man. Just by simple chance she meet him on the bus...and the scene happens. I am not sure if this is the great film ever (I am strongly considering it)...but this for me..as a father of a beautiful daughter is the greatest scene ever.

My goodness!!! When the daughter calls him "daddy" I had to turn it off. I put my head in my hands and almost started a deep cry.

Another Rohmer pure gem... To address a few negative comments, it´s important to stress that Rohmer named this movie a "tale", un "conte" en français, the word that is used to qualify Perrault or Grimm´s writings. Which is to say that, yes, magic will occur... First of all, the wonderful first five minutes: they´re on an island, they´re alone in nature, seuls au monde, they´re young, beautiful, they´re naked, they invent love, they create life (literally), they´re Adam and Eve. But then they leave the island, they leave Eden, they start to move, the beginning of the exile. Notice how many scenes take place in various means of transportation...

Félicie cannot be whole again, she gets torn between practical life with Maxence and intellectual life with Loïc. It´s never clearly said what specific word from Maxence made Félicie decide to enter the church and then to leave him, but it´s most likely "patronne", this purely social role and denomination. The word that she will eventually accept, at the very end, accepting that it can be part of who she is and will be as a whole. Félicie is in a journey to find her paradise lost, to return from exile. Metro and train are the means of transportation associated with Maxence, as car is with Loïc, and this one-time occurrence, the bus, finally with Charles. And isn´t a bus like a mix between a metro and a car...? At the end of this journey, she finds and regains her true soul mate. In addition to Pascal´s "pari" and Plato´s anamnesis (or réminiscence) myth, another Plato reference should be made here, the androgynous myth : once separated from our double, our other self, we can never stop yearning and searching for him or her.

A final word on Rohmer´s style, once more without comparison : the acting so just, the direction so subtle (see how the two main characters get progressively closer to one another in the final scene, as their dialog also gets them closer), the dialog both so well-written and so real, one small example when the little girl at the end says "je pleure de joie..."