A Tale of Springtime / Conte de printemps (1990) [The Criterion Collection]

Director: Éric Rohmern
Writer: Éric Rohmer
Stars: Anne Teyssèdre, Hugues Quester, Florence Darel

In the first film of Tales of the Four Seasons, a burgeoning friendship between philosophy teacher Jeanne (Anne Teyssèdre) and pianist Natacha (Florence Darel) is strained by jealousy, suspicion, and intrigue. Natacha encourages Jeanne to pursue Igor (Hugues Quester), Natacha’s father, in order to supplant Ève (Eloïse Bennett), his young girlfriend, whom Natacha loathes. Natacha’s scheme, however, risks alienating those closest to her as well as entangling Jeanne in the very kind of romantic drama she has vowed to avoid. A Tale of Springtime finds Eric Rohmer in full command of his subtle visual storytelling as he contrasts the brightness of his characters’ Parisian and suburban surroundings with their conflicting desires, ideas, and temperaments.

Extras:
- New 2K digital restoration, supervised by cinematographer Diane Baratier and Laurent Schérer, director Eric Rohmer's son, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Excerpt of a radio interview with Rohmer conducted by film critic Serge Daney
- The Kreutzer Sonata (1956), a newly restored short film by Rohmer
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation



Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons:
The seasons may change, but the follies of the heart are constant in this ineffably lovely quartet of films by Eric Rohmer, one of cinema’s most perceptive chroniclers of the pangs and perils of romance. Set throughout France, Tales of the Four Seasons is a cycle to stand alongside the director’s two earlier acclaimed film series, Six Moral Tales and Comedies and Proverbs. By turns comic and melancholic, breezy and richly philosophical, these bittersweet tales of love, longing, and the inevitable misunderstandings that shape human relationships probe the most complex of emotions with the utmost grace.