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.

timmy_501 This second in Rohmer's Tales of the Four Seasons begins with a rapid montage that shows the amazingly romantic beach vacation romance of Felicie and Charles. The two appear to be quite in love but continuation of their relationship is hindered by Felicie foolishly giving him the wrong address. Cut to 5 years later and Felicie is living with that mistake and Charles's daughter. Her subsequent relationships with men have not been successful and in fact around half of the film shows the two major ones in their late stages.As I watched Felicie and her attempts to get along with her two suitors I couldn't quite decide how to interpret her actions. Clearly both men cared for her but she was unable or unwilling to care for them to the same degree. I wasn't sure whether to view her actions cynically and assume she was just using the missing man as a larger than life figure which other men couldn't hope to measure up to or to view them more generously and assume that Charles was actually her true love. The beauty of the film is that ultimately it could be seen either way.Regardless of her true motivations it was quite clear that she really had faith in her love for Charles. In fact, it seems to be in her nature to take things on faith. She relies on intuition rather than logic to make decisions; this often makes her actions seem unintelligent but to simplify her this way would be a mistake. In a conversation about reincarnation she makes arguments that her friend recognizes as being similar to the philosophies of Pascal and Plato, two writers she hasn't read.Although the plot of this film is more conventional (i.e. it has something like a resolution) than most Rohmer films it still manages to be quite effective and emotionally resonant. The cinematography is quite good, especially in the opening montage and the urban night scenes. Also, once again Rohmer does an incredible job of capturing the essence of a complex character. One of the best Rohmer films I've seen

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.

Jonathan Doron The second of Eric Rohmer's Four Seasons. This is a beautiful movie. Low-keyed, quite, slow- but not at all too slow. Simple story with complex characters; Interesting to the end. I can't wait to see the other "seasons".