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A Heart in Winter (Un cœur en hiver)

a French film which was released in 1992. It was directed by Claude Sautet, stars Emmanuelle Béart, Daniel Auteuil and André Dussollier, and is distributed by Koch-Lorber Films.

The film is set in contemporary Paris and tells the story of 3 characters, Maxime, Stéphane and Camille, caught in a love triangle. Camille is a violinist of rising fame and popularity, and begins a casual relationship with Maxime who owns a workshop which both manufactures and repairs violins. Stéphane is Maxime’s employee and friend, and after meeting Camille to have her faulty violin repaired, she fall obsessively in love with him, a love which he rejects.

Directed by Claude Sautet
Produced by Philippe Carcassonne
Written by Claude Sautet
Jacques Fieschi
Starring Emmanuelle Béart
Daniel Auteuil
Music by Maurice Ravel
Cinematography Yves Angelo
Editing by Jacqueline Thiédot
Distributed by Koch-Lorber Films
Release date(s) September 2, 1992
Running time 105 min.
Country France
Language French

Belle de jour

a 1967 French film starring Catherine Deneuve. The title means “beauty of the day”. The film was directed by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel. It is based on the 1928 novel of the same name by Joseph Kessel. American director Martin Scorsese promoted a 2002 release of the movie on DVD.

Séverine Serizy is a young, beautiful Paris housewife who has masochistic daydream fantasies about elaborate floggings and bondage. She is married to a doctor (Jean Sorel) and loves him, but cannot share physical intimacy with him. A male friend mentions a high-class brothel to Séverine, and soon she secretly tries to work there during the afternoon (using the pseudonym Belle de jour). The brothel is run by Madame Anaïs, played by Geneviève Page. Séverine will only work up until five o’clock each day, returning to her blissfully unaware husband in the evening.

Directed by Luis Buñuel
Produced by Henri Baum
Raymond Hakim
Robert Hakim
Written by Luis Buñuel
Jean-Claude Carrière
Joseph Kessel
Starring Catherine Deneuve
Jean Sorel
Michel Piccoli
Geneviève Page
Release date May 24, 1967
Running time 101 min
Language French

Love in the Afternoon

(original title: L’Amour l’après-midi and also known as Chloe in the Afternoon) is a 1972 film by Éric Rohmer. It is the sixth and final movie in the series of the Six Moral Tales

The action of this film revolves around a young, successful lawyer, Frédéric (Bernard Verley). He is happily married to Hélène (Françoise Verley), an English professor, and father to one child, with another on the way. Still, something eats away at him. While going through his day, Frédéric begins to ponder the times before he was married, when he was free to be with any woman he wanted and could feel the deep satisfaction of anticipation while he chased them. At one point in the film, he has an elaborate fantasy, where he possesses a magical amulet that causes all women to bow to his will. These thoughts do not distress Frédéric though, as he sees these ideas as a reflection of how true his love to his wife is.
One day, an old friend shows up suddenly at Frédéric’s office. Chloé (Zouzou) was the girlfriend of an old friend, a woman who caused his friend a great deal of grief. At first he believes she only wants something from him, but over time, as she tries a series of jobs to try for some type of solidity in her life, the two begin spending afternoons together, talking of many things Frédéric finds himself unable to talk to his wife about. Eventually, Chloé confesses that while she does not desire marriage she would like to have a child, and wants the child to be from him. In a minor state of mental anguish, Frédéric ponders the paths of staying with a wife that he loves greatly or going with a woman who he feels a strange deep passion for. In the moments before it seems Frédéric will consummate his feelings for Chloé he flees back to his wife, leaving Chloé sprawled on her bed waiting for him. It is not shown what happens to Chloé, but upon Frédéric’s return to Hélène the tears that spill from her show that something definite yet not altogether dire has changed between the two of them.

Directed by Éric Rohmer
Produced by Pierre Cottrell
Barbet Schroeder
Written by Éric Rohmer
Starring Bernard Verley
Zouzou
Françoise Verley
Daniel Ceccaldi
Running time 97 min
Language French

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On connaît la chanson (Same Old Song)

a 1997 French movie. It was directed by Alain Resnais, and written by Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri. Jaoui and Bacri also starred in the film with Jane Birkin, Lambert Wilson, André Dussolier and Pierre Arditi

Odile (Azéma), a business executive, is married to weak, furtive Claude (Arditi). In the past Odile was close to successful businessman Nicolas (Bacri), now married with kids and returning to Paris after an eight-year absence. She is looking for a new, bigger apartment from real estate agent Marc (Wilson). Her younger sister Camille (Jaoui), has just completed her doctoral thesis in history and is a Paris tour guide. Simon (Dussolier) is a regular on her tours because he’s attracted to Camille, although he claims to be researching his historical radio dramas. Camille has fallen in love with Marc, the estate agent who is responsible for Odile’s apartment, and has an elder employee, and they begin an affair. Nicolas is also looking for an apartment, since he hopes to eventually have his family join him in Paris.
The most original feature of this “musical” is that characters break into songs as sung by the original artists, i.e. depending on the circumstances, a female character may all of a sudden start singing in a male voice and vice versa. The judicious choice of songs and variety of styles make for some very funny surprises, considering the complete and voluntary absence of transitions between the talking and singing. The film’s debt to Dennis Potter is acknowledged with a dedication in the opening credits.

Directed by Alain Resnais
Written by Agnès Jaoui
Jean-Pierre Bacri
Starring Agnès Jaoui
Jean-Pierre Bacri
Cinematography Renato Berta
Editing by Hervé de Luze
Distributed by Alia Films
Release date(s) 1997
Country France
Language French

He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not (French: À la folie… pas du tout)

a 2002 French film starring Audrey Tautou.

Angélique (Audrey Tautou), a young art student from Bordeaux, purchases a single pink rose for her married lover, Dr. Loïc Le Garrec (Samuel Le Bihan), a successful cardiologist. Both she and the delivery boy leave the shop and depart in opposite directions.
Angélique is a successful art student, having just won a scholarship and grant. She also has a part time job at a cafe, helps her friend Héloïse (Sophie Guillemin) look after her little sister, and also housesits for a wealthy vacationing family. As the film progresses, we observe the progress of her affair with Dr Le Garrec. She waits for him, to celebrate his birthday, but he never shows, actually seeming to care more for his pregnant wife Rachel (Isabelle Carré) than about her. Finally, his wife has a miscarriage and that they separate. She then prepares to go with him on a romantic getaway to Florence, Italy. However, instead of meeting her at the airport, he decides to go and try to mend things with his wife. This is the last straw for Angélique, who is thrown into a self-destructive cycle of clinical depression, ultimately losing her job, her scholarship, and her sanity.
Then, while watching the news one night, she learns that Dr Le Garrec has been arrested for assaulting one of his patients, Soniya Jasmin (Nathalie Krebs). She immediately leaves, murders Ms Jasmin, and rigs the evidence to look like a home invasion robbery.
Thinking that this act of selflessness will win him back, she goes to see Loïc, arriving just in time to see him arrested by the police for Soniya Jasmin’s murder, and embracing his wife as he is dragged away. With her last hope shattered, Angélique returns home, turns on the gas, and lies down on the floor. Her eyes close.
However, the film pauses, and then rewinds entirely to the moment when she bought Loïc the pink rose.
This time, however, we follow the delivery boy and the events play out from the viewpoint of Dr. Loïc Le Garrec.
The viewer suddenly learns that, not only is Dr. Le Garrec not in love with Angélique, he does not even know who she is. In reality, every instance in which the two of them have been seen together has really been completely innocent. Only because the audience has been tricked into believing that they were having an affair caused the film’s events to seem to be something else. Rather than being a man who is both committing adultery and mistreating his mistress, Loïc is revealed to have been a loyal and devoted husband who was being stalked by an erotomaniac. Angélique’s obsession with him had grown so delusional that she deliberately ran down Mrs. Le Garrec on a borrowed moped, causing the pregnant woman to have a miscarriage.
Shortly after the failed Italian trip, a stressed out and increasingly paranoid Loïc receives a present, unmarked and with no return address. He opens it up to find a human heart impaled on an arrow. Certain that his stalker is Soniya Jasmin, a cantankerous hypocondriac, he loses control and physically attacks her, after which she indignantly presses charges for assault. After her subsequent murder, he is arrested as the prime suspect.
At his arrest, his estranged wife returns to him and acts as his defense attorney. He is ultimately cleared of suspicion. That night, however, he hears police sirens and sees an ambulance pull up to a neighbouring house, where his neighbour (the housesitting Angélique), has just tried to commit suicide. As a doctor, Loïc performs mouth to mouth resuscitation, causing Angélique regains consciousness. Later, at the hospital, her friend David (Clément Sibony), who suffers from an unrequited love for Angélique, approaches Loïc and punches him in the face, believing that he is deliberately trifling with Angélique’s affections.
Loïc carefully examines all the people whom he had suspected of stalking him and considers Angélique for the first time. He vaguely remembers having greeted her after learning of his wife’s pregnancy and having presented her with a pink rose from a bouquet intended for his wife. Loïc carefully sorts through all the things that were sent to him, including a house key. That night, he impulsively tries out the key on Angélique’s house, discovering that it works. Inside the house he discovers mass heaps of trash, and on the wall, a life-sized garbage mosaic of him, acompanied by the withered rose. He realizes in disgust that he has finally found his stalker.
In the climax of the film, Angélique approaches Dr. Le Garrec, and listens in shock and disbelief as he coldly tells her that they never had nor will ever have any connection at all. As he walks away, an enraged Angélique hurls a brass figurine into his skull, leaving him severely brain damaged. She is arrested, charged with the many crimes she has committed, and remanded to a mental institution.
Meanwhile, Rachel Le Garrec stands by her husband throughout intensive physical therapy as he recovers from his injuries. Mr. and Mrs. Le Garrec are later shown in a house filled with their many children as Loïc hobbles around on a cane.
Five years later, Angélique is released from the hospital. Her therapist praises her progress and tells her, “If you keep taking your medication, you will be fine.”
However, as Angélique’s room is cleared out, the cleaning man discovers that every single pill she should have taken has been glued to the wall in a mosaic of Loïc. Oblivious to its meaning, the cleaner merely sighs and scrapes it into the trash, as Angélique walks down the hall and into the outside world.