A Heart in Winter

Director Claude Sautet

Director of Photography Yves Angelo oversaw this gorgeous restoration and HD transfer of Claude Sautet’s heartbreaking French love story to DVD for Koch Lorber Films and the quality of the disc is so great that, even on a smaller home television, the beauty of the film is just as mesmerizing as it must have been in the 90’s to theatergoers. Distant, incapable of affection and shut off from intimacy (as the title implies), Daniel Auteuil is wonderful as Stephane, a man closer to the violins he repairs than he is to the people in his life. When Camille the beautiful musician girlfriend (Emmanuelle Béart, never lovelier) of his boss (André Dussollier) develops intense feelings for Auteuil, their painful love triangle gets even more complicated. For, as Groucho Marx once said, the trio find themselves not wanting to be a part of a club in which anyone would have them as a member but I’m over-simplifying it of course as the score utilizes the fiery music of Ravel to great effect, making it much more complex to viewers. Although intriguingly Claude Sautet depicts the heartbreak of A Heart in Winter with exquisite simplicity in lovely understated dialogue and action, thus earning himself the Best Director award in his native France after the release of the film.