A Tale of Winter movie review (1992)

A Rohmer film is a flavor that, once tasted, cannot be mistaken. Like the Japanese master Ozu, with whom he is sometimes compared, he is said to make the same film every time. Yet, also like Ozu, his films seem individual and fresh and never seem to repeat themselves; both directors focus on people rather than plots, and know that every person is a startling original while most plots are more or less the same.

His earlier films were about men and women; the later ones are about women and men, or women and women. He is concerned with the search for love and pattern in life. He loves the way women look and move and talk, and the way they evaluate men. He admires physical beauty, but never makes it the point; he chooses actresses who are smart and bright-eyed, and focuses on their personalities rather than their exteriors. Exteriors are to distract his male characters, like the hero of ''Claire's Knee'' (1970), who sets a labyrinthine plot into motion simply to supply himself with a reason to touch the knee of Claire.

Felicie, the heroine of Rohmer's ''A Tale of Winter'' (1992), is convinced that life will fall into line with her great romantic purpose. Having met the love of her life and lost track of him, she expects him to return. She believes in coincidence--but doesn't believe it is coincidence. As the film opens, she meets Charles at the beach, and falls unreservedly in love with him. She knows this is the real thing. She gives him her address; he doesn't give his, because as a trainee chef he is always on the move. They promise to meet again.

The ominous title ''Five Years Later'' reveals that they do not. She has a daughter now, Elise, from that summer romance. She is dating two men--Maxence, who runs a hair salon, and Loic, who works in a library. Courtship with both men seems to consist largely of verbal negotiations.

Felicie, played by Charlotte Very, is absorbed by her own case. She knows she will never love anyone the way she loves the absent Charles. The film reveals that Charles never wrote because she stupidly gave him the wrong address. Rohmer tells her story in the way it might unfold in real life, and it's typical that he gives us a scene where Felicie seems to be following somebody out of a Metro station, but we never get a shot of who she is following (here he neatly skewers the cliche of the mistaken lookalike). He makes us wait for her to mention casually that she thinks she might have seen Charles in the street. Rohmer also bides his time before establishing that both Maxence and Loic know all about Charles--and about each other. This is not a love triangle because the only man she loves is the one who isn't there.