"A Tale of Winter" is a film that apparently several reviewers really liked here on IMDb. Well, as for me, I hated the film and found the characters to be rather annoying as well as difficult to believe or like.When the film begins, Félicie is having a brief but wild affair with Charles. They barely know each other--and she doesn't even know his last name. When they depart, he gives her his address and she loses it...and they don't get back together. Now it's five years later. Félicie has a child and Charles is the absent father. During this interim, two men have fallen for her. However, Félicie is only interested in them as friends and openly tells them both that her heart only belongs to Charles...a guy she barely knew and whose whereabouts are unknown. She also openly admits that she expects that he might just show up in the future and they'll live happily ever after...and because of this she won't commit to another man. As a result, her life and her child's are on hold...waiting and hoping for some miracle.I found the main character to be incredibly childish and unlikable. She was a hopeless romantic...but also an immature mother and self- absorbed lady. Much of what she says throughout the film is pretentious and banal...particularly when she's trying to sound religious and insightful. Why the men in her life loved her, I have no idea...none...and that is a big weakness of the story. What made all this worse is that the director gave it all a fairy tale like ending. Had she lived waiting and waiting and ultimately wasted her life (like Miss Havisham from "Great Expectations"), I think I would have enjoyed the film much more because it would have seemed real. Instead, the movie seems to give hope to the dopey people of the world...people who refuse to grow up and face reality. Rarely does a film annoy me as much as this one did.

Rohmer and his Racinian dialogs remind that persons still exist who make movies as objects destined to a higher appreciation. I am pretty certain that his movie requires more than one viewing. I have found it interesting, nuanced and well—handled. Rohmer's movies are the true hallmarks of contemporary cinema; It is true that today I have sipped CONTE D'HIVER as an antidote; there was a time when, able to like Fellini, Kitano and Griffi, I disliked a Rohmer movie (as well as movies by Mrs. Duras, Tati—and the fact is that I did not identify their cause as art's own)—but nowadays I feel so offended and sickened by the current rubbish and so wholly Europhile that I resorted to Rohmer's outing as to an antidote, a balsam. I had this feeling of approval—yes, this is the way, that is how one should film …. I sipped it, I got it approvingly.Rohmer and his uniquely charming art are an encouragement and a substantial achievement for those who seek an adult art;as a movie buff, he had earned my respect long ago. Now, he has earned my esteem as a director as well.I would suggest a small history lesson—the very man who made CONTE D'HIVER (and, incidentally, gave me a renewed taste for the Shakespearian play) is the same who praises Hawks and considers him an essential director; so much about the simplistic dichotomy operated between schools, etc.. So, feel proud to exalt Hawks' movies—why, this is the sanest thing for a Rohmer fan!

A most brilliant, brilliant movie. Rohmer here exhibits nothing but true mastery in this most insightful work on the power of love over all else. This is a movie for romantics, dreamers and those who have known what it is to live for love.Being "a Rohmer", the movie is by no means fast paced but as each minute passes you lose track of time as you become ever more consumed in the story; and it's a story whose tension almost effortlessly builds as the movie progresses; fulfilled in part by Rohmer's brilliant direction but also by the exceptional performance of Charlotte Very. Her acting in this movie is so brilliant that it's sometimes difficult to recall that you are actually watching a fictional movie and not a fly on the wall treatise on the nature of love that never dies. The question one must repeatedly wonder concerns the nature of love and more particularly whether one can ever love other persons the same way you loved your first? Whether your views change or not from watching this movie, it would be difficult not to be moved by its tale. All I can say is that by the film's ending I really was hungry for more - which rarely happens to me when watching movies! That being said, this is definitely not a movie for everyone: If your "top ten" includes Transformers, 300, Fight Club then you should steer well clear of Conte D'Hiver. The action in this movie is only of the psychological sort. Rohmer fans will (needless to say) be instant converts. But if you enjoyed movies as diverse as Before Sunrise, or even Casablanca you'll certainly not want to miss Conte D'Hiver/A Winter's Tale. Without a moment's hesitation, I give it 9/10. And so should you! Please watch it & see why...

I have seen a lot of Rohmer, but this is the best of the lot. As opposed to the way hollywood would have made this film, where the outcome would be more obvious as time passed, this gets more uncertain throughout. the interminable wanderings and sulkings of the lead character create an almost unbearable emotional tension, which makes the impact of the end even more astonishing. watch this film as soon as possible, and then compel your mates to see it. if they arnt touched, they live in an emotional vacuum.