A Heart in Winter (1992)

Daniel Autiel is an unemotional, disconnected violin maker/restorer who has a very unusual passionate relationship with his partner's mistress ..the incredibly beautiful Emmanuelle Beart. Beart is a concert violinist and there is a lot of sensational music in the film. Very French. I enjoyed it.

To watch the director's interview first is essential for those unfamiliar with French cinema thinking and Classical Literature. (Here it's Othello). It will explain all the unfounded misguided criticisms. This is not Hollywood mundane. This is real movie making; A tight visual and character scenario which constricts a cacophonous spectrum of emotions intensely orchestrated at bursting point by the most extraordinarily passionate rendition of Ravel's Piano Trio to date. (a compulsory acquisition) Counterpoint is Stephane's empty inert seemly unmoved character. Daniel Auteuil, who at the time was beginning his real life marriage with Emmanuelle B?art, originally rejected the part - unable to fathom the difficult emptiness. But the polar extreme makes perfect dramatic sense and compositional balance to such passion and physical beauty.

A beautiful movie in the French tradition of filmmaking. Pity, though, about the casting of Stephane. This actor came across as a block of wood, hardly an object of desire.

I wonder if the violin maker was to shy to respond to this beautiful woman or he feared the loss of his close friend. In the end he loses both. A slow but sensitvely crafted film beautifuly acted.

Here is a man who longs to fall in love, but when the woman is responsive to him, he denies the very thing he wants.....such is the nature of man. Not sure I really like French films, but worth a look at this one.

An intense and moving love story told as only the French seem capable of doing with the minimum of histrionics and, as a welcome change, with not a bare breast in sight.

“Beauty and the Yeast” could be an alternative title. The gorgeous Beauty is Camille, a concert violinist and the ferment causing Yeast is the emotionally isolated Stephane, a master violin craftsman. Title aside, this well constructed and acted sad masterpiece, enclosing a bizarre love triangle, finely reflects the subtleties of the human condition; through restrained expressions and movements and sparse taut dialogue the characters create a compelling psychological drama. Some of Maurice Ravel’s chamber music interacts beautifully with the complex love story. At the conclusion, I was cautiously sanguine about a reformation in Stephane’s makeup. Hard to believe Daniel Auteuil is the same actor who played Ugolin in Jean de Florette. French film making at its best!

I give it only three points because, although I loved the music and the actors, I didn`t quite get the meaning. Was the violin-maker heterosexual, gay or just weird??

A beautiful movie!

An intense psychological play well acted and very absorbing, if sad.

A moving story, beautifully produced.

A subtle and well told story with very good acting - highly believable. The classical music provided added enjoyment.

I loved this film and it has really stayed with me for some weeks since seeing it. It has two of my favourite french actors in it, so I was happy!

Who could be ambivalent to Emmanuelle Beart? An excellent film, made all the more potent by the casting.