Un Coeur en Hiver (Un Coeur En Hiver (DVD))

Member Name: Macfarlane65

Product:	Un Coeur En Hiver (DVD)
Date:	05/07/09 (5 review reads)
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This is a quiet, very French film about a subtle kind of unhappiness. Maxime and Stephane are violin restorers, working together at the highest level. Maxime plans to marry the almost impossibly beautiful Camille (Emmanuel Beart), a gifted young soloist beginning to make her way in the world of concerts and recordings. Then she is distracted by the strange magnetism of the younger Stephane (Daniel Auteuil) and becomes obsessed by him. But Stephane, though attracted to her, is unable to love her and tells her so. His is the 'coeur en hiver'. Many more things happen, and the film eventually ends with all the main protagonists on good terms, having come to understand each other better, but none fully happy. It's a curiously unmelodramatic, 'grown-up' sort of film, which avoids both the conventional happy and the obvious tragic ending, and I enjoyed it. The acting is first rate, and there has to be a special word for Beart who must mime very complex violin playing and does so with great skill (apart from also lighting up the screen every time she appears). The music - Ravel's Violin Sonata and Piano Trio - adds a good deal of atmosphere to the film and the scenes in the violin restorer's workshops are expertly handled ; it's a convincing film, an unusual one and an enjoyable one.

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