Un coeur en hiver (A Heart in Winter)

Writer-director Claude Sautet excelled at finding poetry in the banalities of French bourgeois life. Un coeur en hiver -- his next-to-last film, released in 1992 -- transcends the cliches of its central premise through excellent performances and unexpected twists on its simple plot. Stephane (Daniel Auteuil) and his business partner, Maxime (Andre Dussollier), are failed musicians who take pleasure in the talents of others. Sautet and co-writers Jacques Fieschi and Jerome Tonnerre slowly make clear that Stephane is not just devoted to his work, but uses his skills to retreat from life. An emotional cripple like the men in Henry James's novels and stories, he is content to observe rather than participate.

All this seems to change when Stephane first hears Camille (Emmanuelle Beart), a brilliant young violinist, play the instrument he has fixed and is quite moved. She soon notices that Stephane seems to have greater sensitivity and depth than Maxime, who has become her lover. A series of missteps changes the configuration of this triangle.

Un coeur en hiver is a wonderful example of how French films differ from ours. These characters sit around talking (and there is indeed a lot of sitting around and talking) about abstractions like culture, democracy, and personal freedom and make it all seem natural. Just the opposite occurs when Woody Allen, for example, tries for the same effect in Interiors or the dramatic half of Melinda and Melinda and the result is tedium. While Sautet's characters are engaged in ideas, however, they are on less certain ground when it comes to their emotional lives and that exactly is his point. Concepts are easy, passion is hard.

Beart, who resembles Radha Mitchell but is even more beautiful, is at her peak here. She makes Camille's transition from control to chaos credible and moving. Auteuil, who had a long off-screen relationship with Beart, supplanted Gerard Depardieu as France's leading film actor with performances like this one during the nineties. It is difficult to make a character cold and aloof, but also compelling, yet Auteuil achieves this effect primarily with his intense, sad eyes. No one is better at subtly showing a range of emotions. While Sautet won a Cesar as best director and Dussollier won one for a role that is primarily a plot device, Auteuil and Beart came away surprisingly empty-handed.

Koch Lorber's excellent transfer captures the beauty of Yves Angelo's cinematography, which emphasizes shadows and autumnal colors, much like his great work on Tous les matins du monde. The extras, however, are another matter. In a 5-minute excerpt from the documentary Claude Sautet ou la magie invisible, the director (who died in 2000) says this film is the one he's proudest of.

French television interviews with Sautet and Dussollier are superficial but, in a 25-minute interview, Sautet has a bit more to say. For one, he discusses how Un coeur en hiver is the center of a thematic trilogy bookended by Quelques jours avec moi (A Few Days with Me) and Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud. In addition, critic Michel Boujut gives an overview of Sautet's career in a 2-page insert.

By the way, Auteuil, Dussollier, and Depardieu star in the best film I've seen this century: Olivier Marchal's 2004 policier 36 Quai des Orfevres. Not only has this exciting thriller never been released theatrically in the United States, it is still not available on DVD here. Yet another reason to go with an all-region player. -- Michael Adams