SnoReptilePlenty
Memorable, crazy movie
Allison Davies
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Paynbob
It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
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
MartinHafer
"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.
supadude2004
A most brilliant, brilliant movie. Rohmer here exhibits nothing but true mastery in this most insightful work on the power of love over all else. This is a movie for romantics, dreamers and those who have known what it is to live for love.Being "a Rohmer", the movie is by no means fast paced but as each minute passes you lose track of time as you become ever more consumed in the story; and it's a story whose tension almost effortlessly builds as the movie progresses; fulfilled in part by Rohmer's brilliant direction but also by the exceptional performance of Charlotte Very. Her acting in this movie is so brilliant that it's sometimes difficult to recall that you are actually watching a fictional movie and not a fly on the wall treatise on the nature of love that never dies. The question one must repeatedly wonder concerns the nature of love and more particularly whether one can ever love other persons the same way you loved your first? Whether your views change or not from watching this movie, it would be difficult not to be moved by its tale. All I can say is that by the film's ending I really was hungry for more - which rarely happens to me when watching movies! That being said, this is definitely not a movie for everyone: If your "top ten" includes Transformers, 300, Fight Club then you should steer well clear of Conte D'Hiver. The action in this movie is only of the psychological sort. Rohmer fans will (needless to say) be instant converts. But if you enjoyed movies as diverse as Before Sunrise, or even Casablanca you'll certainly not want to miss Conte D'Hiver/A Winter's Tale. Without a moment's hesitation, I give it 9/10. And so should you! Please watch it & see why...
lexm4
Rohmer's 1969 film 'Ma nuit chez Maud' had explored at great length about "Pascal's wager", which came down to the fact that people willing to bet against enormous odds to attain their life affirming gain (sorry I never read Pascal). This movie is basically a human story built around this Paradox. It did mentioned Pascal once.I find the character of Felicie is well developed and evoke empathy from me. I was a little disappointed at the ending because it doesn't really answer my question, "... but what if I lose?"But I guess like Checkov said the artist duty is "the correct way of putting the question". The question is well put in this film and I can't ask too much.Very intelligent film. Since I don't speak French, at times I feel like reading a book (subtitle) rather than watching a film. But overall I highly recommend it.
