A Heart in Winter (Un Coeur en Hiver) [1992]
Love stories get made dime a dozen in the world
of cinema, but only one in a million manage to be as nuanced, delicate,
layered, affecting, matured, intimate and profound as Claude Sautet’s incredible
penultimate film, A Heart in Winter. It
managed to be a passionate yet melancholic look into a realistic and beautifully
etched love triangle without every crossing the line, so to speak, on either
side. Stephane (Daniel Auteuil) is a genius at making and repairing violins,
and Maxime (Andre Dussolier) is his senior partner of their exclusive shop targeted
towards connoisseurs and artists. Though long time partners and friends, the
two men couldn’t be more different – Maxime, who is warm, suave and gregarious,
takes care of the business, while Stephane is enigmatic, distant and
introverted, and spends all his days and nights ensconced by his craft. Their quiet
sense of balance and status quo, however, get shattered when Maxime informs
Stephane that he has decided to leave his wife and introduces him to his new fiancée
– the ethereally beautiful and virtuoso violin player Camille (Emmanuelle
Beart). Thus begins a fascinating and volatile ménage à trois as the fragile Camielle
starts forging a complex and emotionally charged relationship with Stephane;
with Maxime gradually becoming aware of the shifting dynamics, the lives of the
three marvelously drawn individuals slowly but surely cross the point of no
return, thus leading the film to an understated but memorable finale. Stellar
performances abounded from the three lead actors. Leisurely pacing, somber visuals
and excellent musical motifs perfectly accentuated this gut-wrenching drama on
love, friendship and heartbreaks.
Director: Claude Sautet
Genre: Drama/Romantic Drama/Psychological Drama/Urban Drama
Language: French
Country: France
4 comments:
Auteuil gives a shattering performance and Beart's stoic embrace makes for an utterly fascinating study of the intricate failings of a relationship. The film weaves an emotional spell and certainly there is heartache and shifting dynamics in the menage e trois. It's a masterpiece and Sautet's most profound and affecting work. You have hit another bulls-eye here Shubhajit!
Thanks a lot Sam. Yeah, the performances of all the 3 lead actors were brilliant. And that, along with their characterizations in the script, made each of them such wonderfully rendered characters. In fact, Beart apparently learnt violin for a year in order to prepare for her role. In the end, its got to be one of the most matured & nuanced romantic films ever made.
Not a film I'm familiar with at all, except for the title; interesting to see it leap into the midst of your top 100! Out of curiosity, what title got bumped? Or is it now a 101? ;)
In fact another film of Claude Sautet is now in my Top 100 - Vincent, Francois, Paul & the Others, which I consider as Sautet's best work (among the 6 films by the French director that I've seen so far).
Its still a Top 100 - if 101 movies are listed, that's an inadvertent error that needs to be corrected by me. And I really don't remember which movie got bumped off as a result of this addition. What I do remember is that it was a very good film that I had to narrow down on not through selection by through a process of elimination - I remember this because every time I wish to add a film to the list, the resultant "bumping off" always puts me in severe & excruciating dilemma :)
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