This film is shown occasionally on IFC and is worth watching,some of the performances are quaint and subtle, and the romantic comedy is understated (Though I'm from the states I don't like over the top Hollywood "romantic comedies",actually find them saccharine and intolerable.) Needless to say,the vignettes here are a breath of fresh air. Worth noting is the performance of Sabine Azema,as Charlotte,Isabelle Carre as Gaelle, and Lambert Wilson as Dan.The sets are original and in the backdrop of snow, in the city of Paris. Romantic and ironic, never trite or cloying. Worth more than one view for audiences with taste who cannot stomach yet another Hollywood serving of trite romance. Recommended.9/10.

In seminal works such as "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" and "Last Year at Marienbad," legendary French director Alain Resnais created a whole new vocabulary and grammar for film. His key innovation involved the creation of the time-shuffling narrative coupled with near-subliminal quick cuts in the editing. Ironically, his revolutionary style was appropriated so quickly by directors the world over that the technique became something of a cinematic cliché almost overnight (with even poor Resnais himself falling victim to his own success, as his later films often felt as if they too were borrowing from the master). One can even detect Resnais' influence in such disparate American movies as "Two For the Road" and "Slaughterhouse-Five," not to mention practically half of all the "serious" dramas that come our way these days (i.e. "21 Grams," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Babel").Although his latest endeavor, "Private Fears in Public Places," takes place pretty much in a linear time frame, it still manages to tell three concurrently running stories of lost love, each set in a slightly surreal Paris where people interact with one another in stylized settings and where snow falls relentlessly in the background. The cast of characters includes an ex-soldier who has turned to alcoholism and indolence as a means of covering up a "shameful" event that happened to him while he was in the army; his beautiful fiancé who has grown increasingly frustrated by her boyfriend's indifference to her and the life he is leading; a middle-aged bartender who is having to cope with the increasingly violent temper of his irascible, ailing father; a compassionate, deeply religious caregiver who forms a bond with the old man's son; and a real estate agent who lives with his desperately lonely sister and who becomes fascinated by the pornographic tapes his seemingly prim-and-proper co-worker (who is also the caregiver) keeps loaning to him.As a longtime admirer of Resnais' work, I wish I could say that I enjoyed "Private Fears in Public Places" more than I did. As a study of a group of lonely, unhappy people trapped in a loveless world, this extremely well-acted movie boasts a fair number of moving and even rather funny moments that perfectly capture the soul-crushing angst of modern life. The script is also commendably audacious in not providing a happily-ever-after ending for its characters. Yet, for all its virtues, the movie itself turns out to be less than the sum of its parts, primarily due to its over length and the desultory pacing that drains much of the passion and energy out of the film. Resnais and writer Jean-Michel Ribes - with Alan Ayckbourn's play as their blueprint - do a decent enough job making all the pieces of the narrative puzzle fit together into a grander scheme, but the claustrophobic, stage bound nature of the work ultimately makes us restless. And even though I acknowledge that it is probably that very iciness and claustrophobia that lie at the root of what the film is all about, that realization doesn't make the movie any more entertaining to watch.Not a bad movie really, just not one of his best.

I only discovered Resnais very recently, when I saw the masterpiece Providence. Since then, I've been keeping an eye out for his films, so when this turned out to be showing as part of the French Film Festival, I knew I had to see it.How would I rate it? At first, I wasn't so sure. Although it had its hilarious moments right from the start, I was starting to wonder if this was a film worth watching more than once. Indeed, if it had been directed by anybody but Resnais, it may not have been.It was in the second half, though, that the film really hit its stride. The meeting between Dan and Gaelle (who up to that point were fairly uninteresting characters) was superb, and was quite realistic and engaging. This made the conclusion so much more heart-wrenching, even though the consequences did seem a little clichéd. Also, I immediately warmed to Andre Dussollier, who is able to say so much with his facial expressions.Possibly the drawbacks were the characters of Nicole and Charlotte. It was hard to really sympathize with the former, and I thought the latter was a little odd - it seemed like she was overacting for humorous effect, which was fine, but when it came to her making a serious point, you weren't sure how to take it exactly. The whole porn thing was a little wacky as well and, apart from creating some laughs, seemed a little contrived.Those issues, however, did not seriously detract from the film. The dialogue was excellent, and the highlight (with the exception of the afore-mentioned meeting) was the ending. It seemed like Resnais had been waiting to get to the end of the film just so he could pull off some artiness, but there is no doubt that it worked. The scene with the snow falling in the house (partly reminiscent of Tarkovsky's Solaris) was great, as were the final moments showing every character in familiar yet distorted places, to show their loneliness and/or unhappiness. The basic final sequence has been done many times before, but the way Resnais directed it put it in a class above the rest. As anyone would tell you, endings can be crucial to a film, and this film's ending was superb.One final comment - this was a case where I thought the English title was a lot better than the French one. 'Couers' (which I believe, from my limited knowledge of French, means 'hearts') is a little dull compared to the English title of 'Private Fears in Public Places' which, while perhaps not perfectly relevant to the film, is still an excellent title all the same.

There are lots of reasons to love "Coeurs" . At first, I must say, I hadn't great expectations for this French adaptation of the British play "Private Fears in Public Places", by the acclaimed Alan Ackynbourn. I was wrong: actor- director- screenwriter Jean-Michel Ribes did a clever job with the script. The stories of the six characters intersect smoothly, there are a few big laughs, but the general mood of the film is bitter-sweet and pensive. The ending is in a way very pessimistic: the very true-to-life message is love is a dream, and soon or later everybody has to wake up. The film shows remarkable acting. Italian Laura Morante was awarded with the Pasinetti award in Venice, but the rest of the cast is very strong as well. Honorable mentions go to Pierre Arditi's sensitive performance, and, with lighter tones, to André Dussollier's. Alain Resnais' direction, winner of the Silver Lion at the latest Venice film festival, left in the film a distinct theatrical feeling. The repeated image of the snowfall, used between one scene and another, is appropriate and poetic. Over all a good film - recommended. 8/10 in my book.