Un Coeur En Hiver

This 1993 film directed by Claude Sautet 'A Heart in Winter' stars Emmanuelle Beart as Camille and Daniel Auteuil as Stéphane. The main enjoyment for me, was the love and care, that the main characters bestow on Camille's violin. Camille in playing it, Stéphane in restoring it's sound. Stéphane's boss and apparent friend Maxime (played by André Dussollier), is the man who relates to the customers, while Stéphane is the sympathetic technician.

To me this was rather like the love and care that the chef in 'Babette's Feast' bestowed on the food she prepared for the local villagers. Of course the majority of village folk in that movie would not have fully appreciated how good, what they were eating, was. Luckily there was a gourmet on hand to make the care really worth it.

You could liken Camille's role in Un Coeur En Hiver to that of the gourmet, being able to appreciate the skills of Stéphane in the role that parallels that of the chef.

Despite their common musical interest, Stéphane is by nature a loner, seemingly scared of getting involved in anything more than superficial relationships. Will Camille melt his icy heart?

The music in this movie, is as you might expect, excellent. The photography is stunning too. There are no grand vistas of rolling countryside, mainly close ups of faces. The use of light and focus is very well thought out and the first class actors (that is all of them) cleverly use their facial expressions to convey so much that words couldn't.

For me this movie was a firm demonstration of the versatility of Daniel Auteuil, when compared with his role as Ugolin in Jean de Florette & Manon des Sources. His ability to transform from country bumpkin to a person of sophisticated talents, must have been one of the reasons he was cast as  Henri of Navarre, in the movie La Reine Margot. Of course the other reason may have been that he looks just like Henri did, or at least his skills make you think he does.

Code 1	Un Coeur en Hiver on DVD	Code 2
	Un Coeur en Hiver is sometimes available from Amazon. Click the image on the left for code 1 (US) pricing and availability and the image on the right for code 2 (Europe).

Code 1	Babette's Feast on DVD	Code 2
	Babette's Feast is sometimes available from Amazon. Click the image on the left for code 1 (US) pricing and availability and the image on the right for code 2 (Europe).

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