Love Between The Lines

TITLE: UN COEUR EN HIVER

DIRECTOR: CLAUDE SAUTET

WRITERS: YVES ULLMANN, JACQUES FIESCHI, JEROME TONNERRE

THE BOTTOM LINE: The French have a way with words -- and with the pauses between them that mean so much more.

American movies are all talk, no listen. Jabber jabber, feint feint -- conversation is combat, a schoolyard dissing contest, a slightly more sophisticated version of "Your mother!" "No, yours!" In real life, and in French movies, people pretend to get along when they talk. They keep things light, genial, talking around the issues that burn them up inside. Some love affairs never begin because...