
            "Un Coeur en Hiver" translates as "A Heart in Winter". The three main characters are: the enigmatic violin craftsman (luthier) Stéphane (Daniel Auteuil); the charismatic violin shop owner Maxime (André Dussollier); and the impossibly beautiful violinist Camille (Emmanuelle Béart). Stéphane and Maxime are men perhaps in their early forties. Camille is a women in her late twenties. The age difference is significant if not unseamly.The overriding questions the movie poses are "Whose heart is 'in winter'?" and "Why?"Stéphane is so unemotional that it is easy to assume that the title refers to him. See the end for a spolier that explains why his heart is this way.In the typical French style, the plot/dialogue is fairly minimalist, leaving long stretches during which the viewer can ponder the existential questions it poses. The fact that it is in French with English subtitles makes it harder for the English viewer to catch all the subtleties, while simultaneously heightening the sense of being unconnected, especially to Stéphane.The plot is almost non-existent. Stéphane works for Maxime in his high-end violin repair shop. Camille is a concert violinist who Maxime woos both as a customer and a love interest. Stéphane watches Maxime and Camille become a couple, with implied jealousy. In a series of interactions over the tuning/repair of the violin, we see Camille's interest in Stéphane grow. Maxime and Stéphane seem to be polar opposites. Maxime is a charismatic bon vivant businessman, and Stéphane seems to be a painfully shy, meticulous craftsman.In a typical formula movie, the plot would go as follows: Girl falls for handsome/rich/athletic/shallow alpha man. Girls meets shy/kind/thoughtful underdog loser. Girl learns to love underdog who vanquishes the alpha male in a final showdown by using his wit to defeat brawn.In this movie, girl (Camille) falls for handsome bon vivant (Maxime). Girl then meets shy underdog (Stéphane). Girl learns to love the underdog. So far, perfectly understandable to American audiences. Then, against formula, Stéphane does not return Camille's affections. He leads her on, then eventually rejects her, breaking her heart.Maxime, knowing that Camille is devastated and would have preferred to leave him for Stéphane (if Stéphane was interested), has a decision to make. Does he reject Camille who has betrayed him? No, instead Maxime is outraged not with Camille but with Stéphane. He curses Stéphane and slaps him in the face, not for stealing his lover but for rejecting her.In the end, Camille returns to Maxime. Maxime accepts this because he loves Camille and is willing to be her second choice. Camille accepts this because her only choices are unrequited love for Stéphane, or being alone. Instead she choses the comfort/respect of a perhaps loveless relationship with Maxime.And what of Stéphane? What has he chosen and why?Except for a short interlude earlier in the move where we see Stéphane visit an old friend/mentor and play briefly with a child, the reader of this review now knows as much as anyone who has seen the movie. This leaves viewers largely intrigued but perplexed, so I'll lay it out for you.Maxime comes across as a good guy even though he left his wife for Camille. Camille is beautiful, young, talented, intelligent, kind, etc. You can't fault Maxime for falling in love with Camille, although perhaps in a French society used to mistresses, he is seen as a cad for leaving his wife. Is his heart "in winter" because he coldly left his wife, or because he knows Camille will never truly love him? No, his heart is warm and generous. He does not abandon Camille even though she has betrayed him. He loves her. If his heart was cold/calculating at the beginning of the movie, he certainly has learned his lesson. His heart is broken, but no longer cold.Camille in the end is "damaged goods." She seems genuinely unaware of the possibility that a man, any man, would reject her. She retreats to Maxime's comforting hug as a child would retreat to her father. Her heart, so vital at the outset of the movie is now broken and cold, perhaps forever. Perhaps she will find eventual love with Maxime, but they have a long, difficult road ahead, and it is unclear if she will ever heal or ever love Maxime. He seems content to wait an eternity, frozen in time if not in temperature.And now we come back to Stéphane. He was aloof and enigmatic at the beginning of the movie. He was calculating and manipulative in the middle. And at the end, he is portrayed as being unbelievably cruel or cold. People assume that any man who could ignore Camille (Emmanuelle Béart) is incapable of love. She is truly a breath-taking beauty. So why is Stéphane's heart "in winter"? It is not in winter because he is unable to love Camille, and viewers who missed this need to go back and watch the entire movie.SPOILER ALERT:Stéphane is in love with Maxime (yes, gay).At the beginning of the movie, he is pining for Maxime who is married and sees Stéphane as solely a platonic friend. Stéphane accepts that Maxime is married and won't leave his wife. When Maxime leaves his wife for Camille, Stéphane is heartbroken, knowing he will likely never be able to love Maxime openly. It isn't even entirely clear if Maxime is aware of Stéphane's love for him. He is aware of it intellectually, but clearly doesn't understand/appreciate a homosexual man's love for another man. (In this way, it is mirrored by Camille not understanding how Stéphane, or any man, could fail to love her.)Stéphane clearly decides that he cannot bear to see Maxime with Camille. He sets out to tear them apart. Stéphane treats Camille as if she is totally disposable, because he only wants to hurt Maxime. This is indeed very cold to Camille, and she is completeely unaware of Stéphane's game. Even Maxime seems to think that Stéphane is in love with Camille. Only in the end when Stéphane rejects Camille does Maxime understand both the cruel manipulation by Stéphane, and the pain that Stéphane must be in. Maxime lashes out at Stéphane for breaking Camille's heart, but in so doing has to recognize that he too broke Stéphane's heart.And there you have it, the inexplicable explained.For evidence that my hypothesis is correct, and that Maxime is neither unaware nor innocent, listen carefully at the beginning of the movie (narrated by Maxime). He says, in essence, that he leads Stéphane on enough to keep this master craftsman working in his violin shop rather than opening his own business. Maxime knows that Stéphane loves him, but being heterosexual, he shows no real understanding of what that means.And with this in mind, it begins to all make sense. Now we understand why Stéphane seduces Camille but rejects her. As any heterosexual male will attest, if you are not gay, you would fall for Camille (Emmanuelle Béart) in an instant. Instead, Stéphane is really after Maxime, and sees Camille as either a rival or an inanimate object (like a beautiful china doll). Stéphane fails to appreciate that Camille is a living person whose heart he will break. His heart is too cold to think of anything but exacting revenge on Maxime.As further proof, there is a subtle parallel thread in which Camille's music coach (a female) is in love with Camille, but Camille just glosses over the issue neither confronting nor rejecting a person she views only professionally/platonically.For the record, I'm straight, so I'm not just reading these themes into the movie for my own sake. I asked a friend who's gay whether he agreed with my take on the movie, and he thought I was crazy.Now go re-watch the movie, and judge for yourself.I'm pretty sure I'm 100% right. No other interpretation is even remotely sensible.
    

Un Coeur en Hiver


            On a Monday, early July, Nicolas (David Bursztein), a young and upcoming painter, visits a reclusive but famous painter Edouard Frenhofer (Michel Piccoli) along with his girlfriend Marianne (Emmanuelle Béart). Frenhofer lives quietly with his wife and one of his former models Liz (Jane Birkin) in a rambling château in the French countryside. They are introduced by Porbus Balthazar (Gilles Arbona) an admirer of Nicolas's work and a former lover of Liz. Porbus is a chemist who made his fortune by inventing a chemical formula and now is an art collector.In his prime, Frenhofer was an extremely productive painter. But of late he has not been working with his last art exhibition being over ten years ago. However, he lives a comfortable life with his wife and a housekeeper Françoise (Marie-Claude Roger) and her daughter Magali (Marie Belluc). We also come to know that Marianne is a writer and has published a children's book and that Liz loves practice taxidermy as a hobby with many rare and endangered birds in her collection.During a visit to Frenhofer's studio and later at dinner, Frenhofer recounts starting a masterpiece titled "La Belle Noiseuse" after reading about a 17th century courtesan named Catherine Lescault with his wife as the model for the painting. However, he was not able to finish it and regrets not 'going all the way'. On Balthazar's and Nicolas's suggestion of using Marianne to be his muse for restarting the work on "La Belle Noiseuse", he agrees. Nicolas and Marianne have a fight over Nicolas agreeing to this without asking her first.However, the next day, Marianne goes to Frenhofer's chateau to pose for him in nude. At first they are both slightly awkward with each other with Frenhofer making a few mistakes while sketching her. However, the next day, Frenhofer demands more from her, making her to pose in contorted positions as he wants the real Marianne to come out in the painting and is prepared to even break her to achieve this. He sketches several drawings but is not able to get what he wants. On the third day, Marianne begins to assert herself in the painting process by doing what she feels like to get her emotions out into the canvass. Finally, Frenhofer is able to get what he wants and completes the painting.Meanwhile, Nicolas grows increasing uncomfortable with Marianne posing for Frenhofer as he fears that he might lose her. He confides this to Liz who reassures him that Frenhofer is a gentleman. Also, Marianne refuses to stop posing for Frenhofer and ridicules Nicolas's hypocrisy. Nicolas confides this to his sister Julienne (Marianne Denicourt) who manages his artworks for him. This prompts her to drive all the way to the village to visit him. Also, Liz who discovers, by accident, that Frenhofer has painted the new "La Belle Noiseuse" over the old one for which she had posed, becomes unhappy and considers this a betrayal. She also warns Marianne to not look at the painting after it has been finished as she may not like what she sees.Once the painting is finished, Frenhofer invites Marianne to see it. After seeing the painting, she leaves in a huff, later confiding to Julienne that she found the painting to be cold and dry which she thinks is a true reflection of her personality. Frenhofer later covers up the painting and with the help of Magali hides it behind a brick wall and asks Magali to keep this secret forever. He then proceeds to paint another painting which he displays to everyone the next day as the "La Belle Noiseuse". Marianne and Liz are happy that he did not display the real painting and they reconcile with their respective partners.
    

The Beautiful Troublemaker


            
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Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud


            Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is an agent and "point man" for an Impossible Missions Force (IMF) team, an unofficial branch of the CIA, led by Jim Phelps (Jon Voight). In Kiev, the team is working on a mission: a disguised Hunt is interrogating a Russian agent who has been tricked into believing he murdered fellow IMF agent Claire Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart), Jim Phelps' wife. Claire has been given a drug to make her appear dead but the team doesn't have much longer before Claire will be beyond reviving. The Russian finally gives up the name they're looking for and is taken away after the name checks out. Claire is revived, asking if the ruse was successful; Ethan assures her it was.While in flight, Jim Phelps is given a tape containing a covert mission for his team. The team assembles in a Prague apartment/safe house to prevent an Eastern European diplomat, Golitsyn, from stealing a Non-official cover (NOC) list - a comprehensive list of all covert agents in Eastern Europe. They go over every details of the plan and the equipment they will be using.The mission runs smoothly, everyone achieves their mission goals and the team obtains video evidence of Golitsyn stealing the NOC list and exiting the building. Unfortunately, that's when everything goes inextricably wrong. Over their radio frequency, Ethan hears his teammate Jack (Emilio Estevez, uncredited), dying from getting impaled on a spike after losing control of the elevator he had been riding all night, which also happens to be the one Golitsyn used to escape. His other teammates Hannah Williams and Claire are killed when their car is bombed with them inside. His mentor Jim Phelps is killed by an unseen assassin that he had reported was following him on the Charles Bridge. Sarah follows Ethan's order to pursue Golitsyn but finds him being stabbed to death; the assassin grabs her and kills her as well. Ethan arrives too late only to find them both dead and realizing the disc Golitsyn has used is gone.Fleeing the scene, Hunt stops at a pay phone to call his agency and alert them of the tragic outcome of their mission. Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny), the CIA-based director of the IMF, tells Ethan to meet him at a local cafe. Ethan is surprised to find out that Kittridge is in Prague too. An hour later, Ethan, very much in shock from the previous events, meets with Kittridge but soon realizes they are not alone; another IMF team is surrounding them, people Hunt recalls seeing at the embassy. When he questions Kittridge about it, Hunt is disturbed to learn that a mole has infiltrated the IMF with a cover name known only as "Job 314" and that the Prague operation was meant to ferret out the mole by allowing him to acquire the NOC list and attempt to sell it to Max, an illegal arms dealer known for corrupting IMF agents. The NOC list found in Prague was a fake, the real list is being held at the CIA headquarters in Virginia. With Hunt being the sole survivor, Kittridge assumes he is the mole they were looking for. Realizing he'll be taken into custody before he can clear his name, Hunt mounts a daring escape from the cafe using exploding "red light/green light" chewing gum to blow up a huge fish tank, fleeing into Prague's Old Town Square.Ethan returns to the IMF safe house, where he uses the internet to seek out Max. Looking over the screen of his laptop, he sees a Bible on a bookshelf above the screen and deduces that "Job 314" actually stands for the Book of Job, chapter 3, verse 14. Ethan then assumes the web entity of Job314 on several different biblical websites and discussion boards and sends out emails to as many Max entities he can find in all kinds of languages before falling asleep. He suddenly awakes to the sound of footsteps in the lobby and an intruder entering the apartment; he hallucinates that it's Jim, bloody and dying, but it turns out to be Claire, still alive and having survived the mission. She reveals she wasn't in the car when it exploded. He tells her about the mole mission, how he's been disavowed by the Agency and that he needs to contact Max to seek out the mole called "Job".Ethan receives a reply to one of his emails, telling him to go to a specific intersection in Prague. He is taken to a meeting with Max, finding out that she's actually a woman. Ethan tells her that the disc she received from Job is a fake and likely has a tracking device on it that will activate as soon as she tries to read the disk, allowing the IMF to find them. Ethan's hunch is correct and they flee the apartment, narrowly escaping Kittridge and his team. Ethan then offers to retrieve the real NOC list for Max in exchange for a cash advance and arranging a meeting with Job, Max agrees to the deal. Ethan uses Max' money to assemble a team of blacklisted or disavowed intelligence agents, including computer expert Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and pilot Franz Krieger (Jean Reno).Disguised as a team of firefighters, they infiltrate the heavily fortified headquarters of the CIA in Langley, Virginia,under the pretense of a fire alarm created by Luther, who also monitors their movements. After Ethan neutralizes a security guard and Claire slips the tech that works the vault terminal a poison that makes him nauseous, Ethan is lowered by Krieger into a highly secured chamber housing the only computer terminal holding the NOC list. While he avoids touching the pressure-sensitive floor and keeps the noise from his theft below a certain decibel level, Krieger spots a rat approaching in the ventilation duct. He momentarily lets Ethan drop and kills the rat, catching Ethan before he hits the floor. For several minutes, Ethan hangs only inches above the floor, watching almost helplessly as his perspiration drips down his glasses, threatening to set off the alarm. Eventually, Krieger is able to pull Ethan up. At the top, Krieger drops his small folding knife, which embeds itself in the terminal's desk just as the tech deactivates the alarm system. After the man discovers the knife, he sounds the alarm, but Ethan's team is able to escape. Kittridge later tells one of his agents to send the tech to Alaska.The team retreats to a London hotel. Once there, Hunt accidentally finds out that the Bible he took in Prague belongs to the Chicago's Drake Hotel, where Phelps claimed to have stayed for a "recruitment" session. After seeing on the news that his uncle and mother have been falsely arrested for drug trafficking in an attempt to lure him out, Hunt is infuriated, and contacts Kittridge, who offers to drop the fake charges the moment Hunt surrenders himself to authorities. Hunt hangs up the phone after allowing Kittridge to trace him to the London area, turns around and walks right into Jim Phelps.Phelps, looking very ill, reveals that Kittridge was the one who tried to kill him, that he is the mole and that he is tying up loose ends by trying to apprehend Hunt. Ethan listens carefully to Jim while in his mind piecing together the clues he discovered leading up to his own operation and realizes that Phelps is Job himself. Hunt also realizes that Krieger is also involved when he remembers that Krieger uses the same kind of knife that was used to kill both Golitsyn and Sarah. His thoughts however are not so clear about Claire's involvement in the conspiracy. He pretends to buy Jim's story and keeps their meeting a secret from everyone else.The next day, Max and Ethan arrange to meet aboard the high-speed TGV train en route from London to Paris, with Claire and Luther aboard to provide backup. Kittridge is also aboard, having recently arrived in London and receiving tickets for the TGV and a video watch from Hunt. In the train, Ethan delivers the NOC list to Max, who directs him to the luggage compartment to find his money, and Job. Max then attempts to transmit the NOC list to a remote server, an operation hindered by Luther, who keeps jamming the signal to prevent the upload. Claire, observing Kittridge's presence aboard the train, vacates her seat and meets with Phelps in the luggage car, confirming that she really is part of the conspiracy. A silent "Jim" slowly peels away his mask... revealing himself as Ethan. Suddenly, the real Phelps appears, armed and demanding the NOC list money. Ethan surrenders the money before pulling out a pair of glasses. He slides them over his eyes, activating the camera inside and transmitting Phelps's image to Kittridge, proving beyond doubt that Phelps is still alive and outing him as the mole IMF was looking for.Phelps, now revealed as a traitor, shoots Claire in anger when she speaks against killing Ethan. He then subdues Ethan before escaping to the roof of the train, where Krieger, also a traitor, waits to extract him with a helicopter. Ethan recovers and follows Phelps, impeding his efforts to escape and tethering Krieger's helicopter to the train as it heads into the Channel Tunnel. The fight continues, with the helicopter now following the train inside the tunnel. The two fight atop the wind-swept train before Phelps disconnects the helicopter from the train and attempts to escape. Ethan follows, leaping onto the helicopter's landing skids and attaching explosive "red light/green light" gum to the windshield. The ensuing explosion destabilizes the helicopter which crashes killing both Phelps and Krieger while Ethan is propelled forward by the explosion and lands hard on the train. The helicopter crashes into the rear of the train and one of the worn down rotor blades stops short of impaling Ethan. Inside the control room, the engineer faints.On board the train, Luther hands the NOC disc over to Kittridge. Kittridge, satisfied that the mole has been neutralized, the NOC list has been retrieved and he's now holding Max's true identity, reinstates Luther as an IMF agent and drops his investigation against Ethan, who has supposedly resigned from the IMF.In the final scene, as Ethan flies home, a flight attendant approaches him and through a coded phrase offers him a new mission.
    

Mission: Impossible

Torment


            This story covers the overlapping stories of a group of French Parisiens who discover the reality of the Aids epidemic through their complex relations with a young man; Manu.
The story unfolds through the complex interactions arranged as scenes as they interact with the character Manu as Sister, Lover, Friend, confidante and even rival as their already difficult relationships become crystallised by his premature diagnosis and inevitably demise.
Each character has their life priorities questioned and they are forced into re-evaluation of the very basic tenets to which they had hitherto held self evident. The Doctor calls Manu his "Eros" and this self deprecating and lonely man is infused with vicarious energy at the simple prescence of this charasmatic individual who with devastating simplicity wins over the cynical underworld of sexplotation and their even harder protagonists in the shape of the Chief of Police.
He is inviolate,kind, demonstrative and unafraid and takes joy in the simple pleasures of life until he must deal with the horror of his prognosis.
Numerous sub stories link the individual struggles of characters to exist, to create, to advance their careers and even to crusade with Manu the keystone enabling these stories to provide context for this thoughtful retrospective of the reality of the mindset at the beginning of this "war" against AIDS.
    

The Witnesses

Marcel Proust's Time Regained

Nathalie...

The Log

La répétition


            At his engagement party, Jim Sanders (Michael E. Knight) seems not so sure about his engagement to Patty Winston (Phoebe Cates), a wealthy girl whose father Ed (David Dukes) is the head of a cosmetics firm. The party is cut short when three men enter in masks and take Jim away, throwing a grenade to the floor and sending everyone else scurrying from the vicinity. Shortly thereafter, the phone rings, and a voice claims that the grenade is a fake, infuriating Ed, and humiliating Patty.The kidnappers are actually Jim's friends, who shanghai him and return him to his place for a bachelor party, much to his chagrin. After leaving him drunk, Jim wakes up when a noise startles him, and going out back, he finds a woman with angel wings face-down in his pool. Taking her inside, Jim is now certain that she is a real-life angel, and notes that she appears to have broken her wing. The angel appears inquisitive but cannot seem to speak except in a series of squawks and high-pitched squeals.The next day, Jim is surprised when his friends come over, and upon seeing the angel, begin to persuade Jim that he should exploit her for profit. Jim quickly kicks them out, but not before the three decide to proceed with their scheme without him. Patty also shows up soon after, but on seeing the Angel (but not seeing her wings), assumes that Jim has been cheating on her and leaves. Later that evening, Patty's father comes to see Jim about his daughter, but finds himself also enchanted by the angel. Her face soon causes him to consider trying to blackmail Jim to having her be his cosmetics company's spokeswoman (of which Patty's has currently been assigned, but has caused company profits to drop).In order to get the angel from Jim, his friends arrange for him to meet with Patty over a reconciliation. This buys them enough time to steal the angel away, while also rousing Patty's anger as Jim rushes off to save the angel. Jim manages to catch up to them the next day before they can reveal her to a press conference, and drives off with her. Soon, a search is made, but no one knows where Jim has gone. Secretly, Jim returns to a wooded area he knew as a child, where he intends to help the angel mend her wing.Eventually, the others find Jim in the woods, from Ed, to Jim's friends (and his father), along with Patty, who has now become a murderous psychopath intending to kill the angel. However, the angel soon reveals that her wing has since mended, and uses harmless lighting bolts to drive away Ed and Patty, before ascending into the sky. In the aftermath, Jim's headaches collapses him to the ground, and his friends and his father rush him to a hospital. It soon is reported that Jim had a cerebral hemorrhage, and may not survive. As he lays in the hospital bed, the angel appears to him, and Jim remarks that he thinks he knows why she landed near his house: she was meant to take him in death.The next day, Jim's friends enter, but are soon shooed away by a blonde-haired nurse, who claims that Jim needs rest. As they look at her, a familiar look crosses their face. Once they leave the room, the nurse turns to Jim, and we see that it is the angel, who has become a mortal woman due to being on good behavior. She also assures Jim that they will have a long and happy life together, humorously claiming that she has that information "from the highest authority".
    

Emmanuelle Béart

Emmanuelle Béart Movies or Tv Shows (upto Nov 2024) - Watch Online

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