Charlotte Véry makes a hesitant explanation funny without belittling the person giving it. We recommend A Tale of Winter for that unforced manner, though its willingness to let people keep reconsidering their feelings requires some patience.
Fi1m perspective
In A Tale of Winter (1992), Charlotte Véry's Félicie tries to explain feelings she has not finished understanding. Véry lets us hear the difficulty without turning the woman into a joke. Her hairdresser remains attached to a lost summer romance, and conviction about that love does not make her other choices any simpler. This is the performance to start with: funny, direct and patient with a person who cannot always give a persuasive account of herself.
Éric Rohmer gives her time to reconsider, repeat herself and leave an answer incomplete. Their conversations also mattered off screen: Rohmer's biographers credit Véry with encouraging him to emphasise the film's mystical dimension. We felt protective of Félicie because Véry makes her difficulty explaining a feeling both amusing and painfully familiar. Her unforced delivery keeps those conversations recognisable even when the discussion becomes wearing. The reservation is with the film's willingness to keep talking, rather than with an actor who repeatedly makes the talk worth hearing.
Three Colors: Blue (1993) gives her a supporting role as Lucille, the frank friend of Juliette Binoche's central character. We rate Krzysztof Kieślowski's tightly controlled film more highly, despite music and images that sometimes press too hard. It is worth separating our regard for that film from our enthusiasm for Véry, which rests chiefly on her work with Rohmer.
Her subsequent screen work has been predominantly in French television, with occasional cinema appearances. She returned to Rohmer as Pulchérie the cook in The Lady and the Duke (2001), and played a French teacher in Serge Bozon's Mrs. Hyde (2017). Choose A Tale of Winter when there is time for its hesitations; Véry makes a good case for hearing someone out.
Biography
Charlotte Véry is a French actress and painter. She trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Saint-Étienne from 1978, followed by studies at a makeup school and acting institutions including the School of Actor Rafaël Gozalbo, the American Center, and the Institute of European Actor Radu Penciulescu. She also worked for a year as assistant to filmmaker Marcel Ophuls.
Véry is known for her roles as Félicie in Éric Rohmer’s A Tale of Winter (1992) and Lucille in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors: Blue (1993). She appeared in other Rohmer-related projects including The Lady and the Duke (2001) and Le Canapé rouge (2005), as well as Mrs. Hyde (2017) and earlier films such as Brothers in Arms (1989). She has additional credits in art department roles as a painter.
