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I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Did you people see the same film I saw?

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Artistic tastes are entirely subjective, so I'll start by mentioning some of my favourite directors, and if they're your faves too, then read on. Otherwise, just skip my entire review.Robert Bresson, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Akira Kurosawa, Bela Tarr, Wim Wenders. And when he's not annoying the living crap out of me, I really like Werner Herzog.I neither liked nor disliked "Tale of Springtime" but was left feeling unfulfilled. Other reviewers have criticized this film for being "boring", "slow" and "plotless". You won't hear that from me. On the contrary, I thought the mood and pacing were perfect. The big problem: it never delivered anything worth justifying the effort of watching. And I don't mean car chases and spaceships; I mean something of philosophical value.This movie drew me in with literary and philosophical teasers implying that the film would attack the grand questions of existence. It begins with an air of mystery (no dialogue for the first 4 minutes) and a teaser about some dark unknown truth about the main character, a philosophy professor; when she finally speaks, she muses about how an invisible person--the bearer of Plato's ring of Gyges--would probably be struggling to piece together the unusual events surrounding her life. We are repeatedly given hints of her guarded secret love-life (a lover's apartment which she is afraid to visit), her violent temper which she repeatedly warns people about, discussions of Plato, Kant, transcendentalism, anything & everything indicating that some substance would follow.I felt totally cheated upon slowly realizing that the protagonist is absolutely average, her life uneventful, and the only grand philosophical question attacked is whether she should kiss her friend's father. Boo. Note to filmmakers: do NOT allude to Plato's ring of Gyges (several times) unless you plan to back it up! That's like opening a film with Beethoven's 7th Symphony, then turning the rest of the film into a campy scifi flick about sex in the 22nd century. Oh wait, John Boorman actually did that in "Zardoz".I would contrast this film against Bela Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies" which, similarly, follows the life of a mysterious lone protagonist & forces us to unravel his life in cryptic vignettes. As in Tale of Springtime, in Werckmeister we also get teasing doses of philosophy to pique our interest. The difference being in Werckmeister the philosophy is profound, pervasive and relevant to the story and setting, and, though painfully slow at times, Werckmeister gives the audience a powerful thought to chew on after the credits roll.This is the third Rohmer film I've seen, and I think I have to conclude that he's not for me. Elements of this film are like Kieslowski whom I adore, but this film doesn't pack the same haunting depth as, say, "Decalogue" or "Trois Couleurs". Elements of this film are like Wim Wenders whom I also adore, but here we lack the satisfying payoff and poetic closure like in "Paris, Texas", "End of Violence" or "Don't Come Knocking". In short, this film has all the style & art of Kieslowski, Wenders & the aforementioned master directors, but none of the guts.By the way, I actually liked "Zardoz"!

From the beginning of this film to the end Jeanne is constantly displaced. The first scene has her returning to her own apartment after a long absence to find the cousin she was allowing to borrow the place is still there in spite of her agreement to leave a day or two previously. Although she desperately wants to return to the order of her own place she pretends that she was just stopping by to pick something up on her way back to the place she shares with her out of town boyfriend. However, she does not feel comfortable returning to this disordered place so to avoid it as long as possible she goes to the party of a former acquaintance. Here she meets Natasha and the plot gets started.Natasha lives alone in a big apartment and she invites Jeanne to stay with her a few days. Jeanne mostly feels out of place here as well but her two day stay stretches into something like ten before she is finally able to return home. During this time she grows increasingly agitated which causes her to act distrustful and paranoid. Unfortunately, her new friend Natasha is acting much the same way toward her father's current love interest and the combination of a negative atmosphere and her own paranoia put her in a rather unpleasant situation.In spite of the general tension of the plot, A Tale of Springtime ends on a very upbeat note that suggests most of the distrust the characters felt toward one another was unfounded. Indeed, the blossoming of new relationships and the general happiness of the characters make Spring a fitting setting for the film. Still, I couldn't help but feel that this wasn't one of Rohmer's strongest efforts: sure, the characters were just as natural as ever and the dialog was even more chock full of interesting ideas than usual but the cinematography wasn't all that special. All things considered, I would say this was quite good but nowhere near the best Rohmer has offered.

It may seem strange that with all the great Rohmer films to choose from, that this would be my favorite. After all, it is a slow moving film, with a threadbare plot, even by Rohmer standards, and yet completely enchants me. Jeanne, the main character, is an ordinary, middle-class woman, at the start of her career as a teacher, at the start of a relationship with Mathieu (whom we never see) still trying to figure her life out. She recognizes her own shortcomings, she thinks too much, she's not able to confide in others and she is sometimes too accommodating to people. Yet she is a noble character, with great integrity and kindness.There is a wonderful little scene in Natasha's apartment. Jeanne is grading papers in the dining room as Natasha comes home from school, and in the kitchen, the living and Natasha's bedroom are flowers Jeanne has bought to thank Natasha for her kindness. Natasha, in return, is so touched by Jeanne's act of kindness that she can barely contain herself. This one little scene shows so much. Jeanne's dedication as a teacher, her kindness to people, and flowers to herald in the first days of spring.As their situations develop, and really there is no reason to speak of the plot, there is a deepening bond as the viewer spends more time with the characters, in simple things, doing simple chores, cutting potatoes, folding clothes, listening to music, and paying attention to what is said, and not said, in their conversations, and at the end of the movie, you seem to have made some very good friends. It's a wonderful thing to be touched by art, but it is more wonderful, I think, to be touched by ordinary life and ordinary people. By not attempting to, Rohmer has made a masterpiece.

This is not my favourite of the 4 Season's tales - I prefer both Autumn and Summer to this one. And it is almost a master class in deficiencies in the British education system, when the main characters can (very convincingly) argue the differences between Kantian perception over lunch, and when Jeanne, the teacher, defends philosophy at secondary school as teaching you how to live. And indeed she seems to be fine with a rather strange situation, being essentially courted by a daughter on behalf of her father (and in fact Rohmer takes up this theme again in Autumn when a woman does date someone as a proxy for her friend). It is a film that requires slow contemplation and which doesn't open up its secrets easily - rather like the location of the necklace, the Hitchcockian MacGuffin which is but a pretext for the poisonous atmosphere between the two girls and whose eventual revelation changes nothing in the basic situation.