Conte d'hiver

Summer in Brittany: tearfully parting after an idyllic holiday romance with Charles (Van Den Driessche), hairdresser Félicie accidentally gives him an incorrect home address. Four years on, it's Christmas and he still hasn't contacted her; but such is her undying love for him - and the daughter he sired - that she finds it impossible to choose between two adoring suitors: her stolid boss Maxence (Voletti) and intellectual librarian Loïc (Furic). Reluctant to compromise her memories and dreams of true passion, she is hoping against hope for a miracle. In focusing on an often irritatingly indecisive heroine devoted to a barely reasonable romantic ideal, the second of Rohmer's 'Tales of the Four Seasons' is reminiscent of The Green Ray, while its wintry study of the varieties of love, faith and religious belief recalls the similarly sublime My Night with Maud. This is Rohmer at his very best, effortlessly and unsentimentally charting the absurd complexities of human psychology, while creating a compelling contemporary fairytale firmly rooted in the banality of everyday existence. It has, as ever, enormous compassion, wit and insight, and its ending is exquisitely affecting.