A Woman In Winter

Ventry Films | Dir - Richard Jobson | Prod - Chris Atkins

2K HD | 2.35:1 | Cooke Zooms | 98 mins

Cast - Julie Gayet | Jamie Sives | Brian Cox | Jason Flemyng | Susan Lynch

A Woman in Winter is a sensual ghost story set in Gothic Edinburgh, that explores the nature of obsessive love. Set now, Fate unites an Astronomer - Michael - with the mysterious Caroline. Told through a series of flashbacks we observe their world turn into a schizophrenic, claustrophobic dreamscape set against a backdrop of parallel worlds and black holes.

Film Four Review

Richard Jobson directs this ambitious tale of two star-crossed lovers, frozen in time - as well as in Edinburgh. Snowflakes fall in slow motion as a woman intones in a subtitled French voiceover about winter, mysteries, loss and the irreversible consequences of fate. It feels like the beginning of some continental, intellectual art flick, and indeed what follows will evoke the likes of Alain Resnais' Last Year In Marienbad (1961) and Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972). In fact A Woman In Winter is written and directed by Richard Jobson, former frontman of 1970s Scottish new wavers The Skids, and it takes place entirely within the confines of Edinburgh - apart, that is, from the bits set in deep space, in 'dead zones', or in the protagonist's head. Jobson's third feature, after 16 Years Of Alcohol and The Purifiers, is made in a nation whose films are most associated with grim social realism but the director aims for the stars, with a film that is as ambitious as it is abstract and ethereal. Michael (Sives) is an obsessive, unstable astrophysicist who is convinced that it is possible to travel backwards and forwards in time through the parallel worlds of a "schizophrenic" universe. To the delight of his observatory boss David (Flemyng) and to the dismay of his sceptical colleague Marianne (Lynch), Michael discovers what he hopes will provide proof of his 'reverse-time theory': a star that looks set to become a black hole on the coming New Year's Eve.

Setting out 'to do something new with digital technology with a very small budget', writer-director Richard Jobson has amply succeeded with this modern story of love and physics. Indisputably paying homage to Wong Kar Wai and to Jobson's beloved French cinema, A Woman in Winter makes judicious use of developing technologies to create its own visual and aural aesthetic. Wisely, Jobson and his creative team haven't allowed their digital experiments to substitute for a decent story, a Sci-Fi romance between a physicist and a French photographer which takes in theories about black holes, parallel universes and time travel. Nicely cast - Jamie Sives and Julie Gayet play the lovers, Brian Cox and Susan Lynch are among the supporting cast - and convincingly played, the film is a pleasurable and engaging watch. Breathtaking images combine with thematic curiosity and huge romanticism, leading us to conclude firstly that sometimes modest resources really are the mother of film-making invention, and secondly that perhaps techno geeks and scientists are just huge softies after all.