Product Description

OscarÂ(r)-nominated* writer/director Eric Rohmer (Pauline at the Beach) delivers this 'splendid, engaging, delightful revelation (The Village View) that sparkles with humor andsizzles with romance. Heightened by the splendor of the French countryside, A Tale of Springtime is radiantly alive, blissfully awareand among the most beautiful and enlightening [films] in world cinema (Los Angeles Times)! The well-ordered life of Jeanne, a high school philosophy teacher, suddenly spins into disorder when a young stranger she meets at a party involvesher in a devilish scheme. Natacha, an adolescent pianist with a penchant for subtly playing her elders, invites Jeanne to her father's home...hoping to make a match of the two and send her father's current lover, Eve, packing. But when the tempestuous Eve arrives at every chance meeting between Jeanne and Natacha's father, fireworks of an entirely different sort erupt, and everyone is forced toexamine his or her own philosophies on love, relationships and other sordid affairs of the human heart. *1970: Story and Original Screenplay, My Night at Maud's

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #100600 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-03-05
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 107 minutes

From the Back Cover
Oscar-nominated writer/director Eric Rohmer (Pauline at the Beach) delivers this "splendid, engaging, delightful revelation" (The Village View) that sparkles with humor and sizzles with romance. Heightened by the splendor of the French countryside, A Tale of Springtime is "radiantly alive, blissfully aware-and among the most beautiful and enlightening [films] in world cinema" (Los Angles Times)!
The well-ordered life of Jeanne, a high school philosophy teacher, suddenly spins into disorder when a young stranger she meets at a party involves her in a devilish scheme. Natacha, an adolescent pianist with a penchant for subtly playing he elders, invites Jeanne to her father's home.hoping to make a match of the two and send her father's current lover, Eve, packing. But when the tempestuous Eve arrives at every "chance" meeting between Jeanne and Natacha's father, fireworks of an entirely different sort erupt, and everyone is forced to examine his or her own philosophies on love, relationships and other sordid affairs of the human heart.

Customer Reviews

A wonderfully entertaining French flick!
Let me start by saying that if you don't like French films where there is no action and it's mostly just dialogue amongst the leads in a few different indoor/outdoor settings, then don't look here. However, if you find Eric Rohmer films, and French films that are very "talky" engaging, then this is one of the better ones.

The leads in this films all give wonderful performances and while I don't like every Rohmer film, I liked this one a lot. Even though it is all talking throughout, the conversations and script kept me intrigued and I found the movie flew buy in a good way (normally talky pictures seem to drag on and on).

The plot is basically a beautiful 18-year-old French girl (the redhead on the DVD cover) meets a late 20's/early 30's girl at a party where they are both bored and become friends. The 18-year-old despises her late 30's/early 40's father's girlfriend and believes that if she puts her new friend togther with her dad, he will fall for her and forget his fiancee. That's basically it, but the characters keep you focused and quite interested in their simple interactions.

The settings are plain, but rather nice-looking French decor. Even though it's a late 80's film, I didn't see much in it to make you think you were in that time frame. A film that looks very fresh today. Also, the MGM-World Films line does a much better job of the transfer than the rest of Rohmer's films, which are done by the folks at Fox/Lorber. The picture quality is far superior and you can change and remove the subtitles (unlike the Lorber films which are burned in).

Small truths are revealed in the warmth of Rohmer's 'Springtime.'
Along with Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales, his 1990 Tale of Springtime (Conte d'printemps) ranks among my favorite Rohmer films. The French romantic comedy is the first film in his "Contes des quatre saisons" (Tales of the Four Seasons) series, which also includes A Tale of Winter (Conte d'hiver) (1992), A Summer's Tale (Conte d'été) (1996) and Autumn Tale (Conte d'automne) (1998). A Tale of Springtime stars Anne Teyssedre, Sophie Robin, Florence Darel, Hugues Quester, and Eloise Bennett in a subtly-nuanced love story about Jeanne, a reserved high school philosophy teacher (Teyssedre), who meets a teenage piano student, Natacha (Darel), at a party, who has a hidden agenda. Jeanne is between apartments and living with her absent lover. Natacha, who claims her father is also away on business, invites Jeanne to spend the night at her place. Unbeknownst to Jeanne, Natacha is hoping do some matchmaking for her divorced father (Quester), even though he already has a lover, Eve (Eloise Bennett). Suffice it to say, Jeanne's scheme ignites French fireworks, transforming this film into a bittersweet meditation on relationships and love. This romance tale reveals Rohmer at his best. He understands the complexities of the human heart, and all of the "action" in this film occurs in the brilliant "Rohmeresque" relationship dialogue (which may not be enough to hold the interest of some viewers). Spring marks the transition from winter into summer, and when it comes to the affairs of the heart, Rohmer's film lives up to its title: small truths are revealed in the warmth of Rohmer's Springtime Tale.


G. Merritt

A match made .... all in your mind
While Rohmer's four "seasonal" films are eclipsed by the monumental Autumn's Tale -- which rivals Claire's Knee as the finest film Rohmer ever made -- this first entry in the Tales of Four Seasons is a worthy effort. All four films in the cycle involve a matchmaking theme (although in Winter's Tale, the matchmaker may, egad!, be God), and the cleverness of A Tale of Springtime is how the overly analytical high school philosophy teacher jumps to the conclusion that she is the object of a matchmaking scheme when, indeed, it may be all in her mind, the over-workings of an over-active imagination. While the casting in this film is a bit bland, Rohmer is attentive to details in his usual way: the film opens with the teacher leaving for spring break from Lycee Jacques Brel (how funny is that?) and deciding to head for Paris after viewing the empty disarray of her absent boyfriend's flat. Characters are constantly defined by their habitats and cares, whether flowers on a balcony or an art critic's well-stocked bookcase. Walled-in spaces define the limits of feeling, and what passes for a plot here is so internalised that Rohmer adds a McGuffin, a little mystery over a lost necklace, to give this delicate souffle a bit of structure. It's a masterwork if not a masterpiece by one of the greatest writer-directors in world cinema.