Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

JoeKulik 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

gavin6942 Felicie and Charles have a serious if whirlwind holiday romance. Due to a mix-up on addresses they lose contact, and five years later at Christmas-time Felicie is living with her mother in a cold Paris with a daughter as a reminder of that long-ago summer. For male companionship she oscillates between hairdresser Maxence and the intellectual Loic, but seems unable to commit to either as the memory of Charles and what might have been hangs over everything.Film critic Roger Ebert added A Tale of Winter to his Great Movies series in 2001, writing, "What pervades Rohmer's work is a faith in love--or, if not love, then in the right people finding each other for the right reasons. There is sadness in his work but not gloom." Respectfully, the film did not do for me what it did for Ebert. I loved the way it incorporated Shakespeare, which is the source of the film's title, but overall found it rather bland. A straight romance-drama tends to be bland, but that is no excuse for my boredom.

Howard Schumann Felicie (Charlotte Véry), another of Eric Rohmer's attractive, smart, but terminally indecisive women is still feeling the effects of the abrupt end to her summer romance five years ago. Having mistakenly given her lover Charles (Frédéric van den Driessche) the wrong address as he was leaving for the U.S., she cannot really love other men and holds onto a strong belief that Charles will one day show up and all will be right with the world. Eric Rohmer's second film in his Four Seasons series, A Tale of Winter, is one of his most engaging romances, a film that like the Shakespeare play of the same name, postulates that passion and strong intention can lead to totally unexpected results.The opening sequence shows Charles and Felicie enjoying the sun, making love, then parting at the end of their vacation. The scene then shifts to Christmas in Paris five years later. Elise (Ava Lorachi), the daughter she had with Charles is now four years old and has seen her father only through photos. Felicie has two lovers but none suit her. Maxence (Michael Voletti) is a heavy set, not too deep hairdresser who is moving from Paris to Nevers and wants Felicie to come with him. She loves being with him but is not madly in love with him. After first saying no, she agrees to go to Nevers but once there, has yet another change of heart after an epiphany about Charles during a visit to a cathedral and returns to her mother in Paris.Felicie's other suitor, Loic (Hervé Furic), is a bookish librarian who is obviously crazy about her but whom she just wants as a friend. He is a Catholic intellectual and Felicie is more free-spirited and they engage in typical Rohmerian exchanges about Christianity, reincarnation and the nature of the soul. A new awareness opens up when she visits the theater with Loic to see Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale. When she sees King Leontes bring a statue of his wife to life after being told, ''It is required that you do awake your faith'', her own ability to "awake her faith" is evoked and leads to one of Rohmer's more upbeat and satisfying conclusions.

Nazar_Vojtovich I just got a chance to see this movie after seeing all other Rohmer's movies I could get my hands on. After seeing it, I must say it's a superb Rohmer, one of his best, certainly the most accomplished of his Four Seasons, highly reminiscent of My Night With Maud, which still remains my favorite film of the perpetually youthful director. Here you will also find a philosophical discussions on the nature of beauty, love, Pascal's wager (familiar item for a Rohmerian, isn't it?), discussion on personal ('intimate') vs. Catholic faith, the immortality of soul. Of course, the heavy doses of philosophy are beautifully integrated into the film, just like in Maud. These discussions seem organical, natural -- the characters really mean what they say here. Like one character said to the main heroine, "You're articulate, because you let your feelings talk" and "I love you because I can read your heart", even if the heroine seemingly has a change of heart every 5 minutes :) I must applaud the lead actress(who's also a great beauty) for her heartfelt, genuine performance. I felt like I knew this woman somewhere before, that I could understand her every action and her every thought. The film is also bittersweet, like a many Rohmer films, yet in this film the melancholy feeling is more pronounced, somewhere on par with 'My Night with Maud'. It also reminded me of Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise"; this film beautifully depicted what feelings Linklater's Jesse and Celine might've had during those long 9 years of separation -- the feelings of longing, of hope, of great joy they'd find in meeting each other again, of "the joy so great it'd be worth giving your life for", in the main heroine's words.What else to say -- I loved these people, they felt real, genuine, and above all hopeful and blessed by love. I loved Felicie and her absent Charles as much as I loved Rohmer's Maud and Jean-Louis, Linklater's Jesse and Celine, David Lean's Laura and Alec -- that is to say a lot. By the end of the movie they've become my friends.