MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Coeur’: A Passionate Look at Parisian Bourgeoisie

When Claude Sautet makes a film, no one goes hungry, either on-screen or off. While his characters are never far from an exceptional glass of wine or an enviable apple tart, the complex emotional lives they display are as rich and satisfying as any of the spectacular meals they consume.

Sautet’s newest film, the expressively titled “Un Coeur en Hiver” (“A Heart in Winter”), follows in this pattern. Like “Vincent, Francois, Paul and the Others” and the director’s biggest American hit, “Cesar and Rosalie” with Yves Montand and Romy Schneider, “Coeur” (Music Hall) succeeds in finding surprisingly supple and involving romantic entanglements in the well-upholstered lives of the Parisian bourgeoisie.

Though he is a popular and well-respected filmmaker in France (“Coeur” was nominated for nine Cesars and won for best director and best supporting actor), Sautet has never been avant-garde enough to be a passionate critical favorite. Instead, he follows in the humanistic tradition of the master, Jean Renoir, and turns out films that are realistic yet accepting about affairs of the heart even when they show their darker sides.

“Coeur” (written by Yves Ulmann, Jacques Fieschi, and Jerome Tonnerre and inspired by a short story by Russian writer Mikhail Lermontov) follows that same pattern of passionate and unnerving feelings. Though it deals with the kind of unlikely couple movies traditionally specialize in, what it does with them is as involving as it is unfamiliar.

Stephane (Daniel Auteuil) is introduced to us (quite shrewdly given what comes later) via his measured voice-over description not of himself, but of his boss. That would be Maxime (Cesar-winning Andre Dussollier), the hawkishly handsome proprietor of a small but prestigious violin repair service.

Gregarious and sure of himself, Maxime is the firm’s Mr. Outside, the man who gains the confidence of the professional musicians and convinces them to trust Stephane, Mr. Inside, with the agonizingly delicate repair of their most precious possessions. Stephane is clearly the more reserved of the two, content, his own words tell us, to remain in the background, living a monkish, almost hermetic existence with only his work for companionship.

The routine of both men’s lives is disturbed, however, when the married Maxime tells Stephane he has fallen so rapturously in love with the beautiful young violinist Camille Kessler (Emmanuelle Beart) that he is leaving his wife and moving in with her.

Diffidence itself, Stephane does not really respond at first to his boss’s announcement, but gradually, as Camille moves more into Maxime’s world, she moves more into his as well. They turn out to not only share a beloved former violin teacher, but also apparently are on a similar psychological wavelength.

Stephane views his growing intimacy with Camille with his usual, almost scientific dispassion, while Camille, also reserved on the surface, becomes increasingly intrigued by Stephane’s emotionally removed quality, his seeming ability to live a totally disconnected life. Both seem fascinated with the tentativeness of their attraction, and neither one seems to know what to do about it or even whether, given their emotional patterns and their connections to Maxime, doing anything is even an option.

The outcome of this unlikely romantic triangle is “Coeur en Hiver’s” subject matter, and it is worked out with a kind of full-bodied delicacy and unexpectedness, an embracing of psychological complexity, that is characteristic of the best of Sautet’s work. An excursion to some of the wilder shores of love and obsession, this film proves its statement that “feelings can’t be demystified” with every scene.

“Un Coeur en Hiver” (Times-rated Mature for adult situations) is especially fortunate to have Beart and Auteuil (who appeared together in “Manon of the Spring” and are apparently a real-life item) as its leads. With sad brown eyes sunk deeply in a poker face, Auteuil has the perfect bearing for Stephane, who is attractive but not handsome, simultaneously distant and self-confident. Beart is equally impressive as a woman whose smoothly classical, almost severe beauty turns out to contain levels of passion that surprise even her.

Exquisite classical music is a major part of “Coeur’s” sensibility, the place where everyone’s emotions converge, and listening to it is yet another of the physical pleasures Sautet delights in providing. Beart in fact spent a year learning to play the violin with so much facility that although it is not the actress but violinist Jean-Jacques Kantorow who performs the exacting Ravel sonatas Camille both rehearses and records, only an expert could be sure. The honesty of this film demanded no less of her, and its success is everyone’s reward.

‘Un Coeur en Hiver’

Daniel Auteuil: Stephane

Emmanuelle Beart: Camille

Andre Dussollier: Maxime

Elisabeth Bourgine: Helene

Brigitte Catillon: Regine

Maurice Garrel: Lachaume

Released by October Pictures. Director Claude Sautet. Producers Jean-Louis Livi, Philippe Carcassonne. Screenplay Yves Ulmann, Jacques Fieschi, Jerome Tonnerre. Cinematographer Ves Angelo. Editor Jacqueline Thiedot. Costumes Corrine Jorry. Musical director Philippe Sard. Production design Christian Marti. Running time: 1 hour, 44 minutes.

Times-rated Mature (adult situations).