event Private Fears In Public Places

Though released internationally under the title Coeurs, a simple reference to the six lonely hearts that populate the film, the U.S. release of Alain Resnais' Private Fears In Public Places takes the original title of Alan Ayckbourn's play, which better evokes its graceful dichotomies. Ayckbourn and Resnais collaborated before with 1993's Smoking/No Smoking, which told two variations on the same story, but here, the dividing lines are much more subtly integrated into the writing and the direction. As the film plumbs deeper into its characters—all lonely, single Parisians well into adulthood—it reveals the mysterious partitions that exist between and within them. And by shooting the film in constant snowfall, Resnais gives it a magical quality.

Though released internationally under the title Coeurs, a simple reference to the six lonely hearts that populate the film, the U.S. release of Alain Resnais' Private Fears In Public Places takes the original title of Alan Ayckbourn's play, which better evokes its graceful dichotomies. Ayckbourn and Resnais collaborated before with 1993's Smoking/No Smoking, which told two variations on the same story, but here, the dividing lines are much more subtly integrated into the writing and the direction. As the film plumbs deeper into its characters—all lonely, single Parisians well into adulthood—it reveals the mysterious partitions that exist between and within them. And by shooting the film in constant snowfall, Resnais gives it a magical quality.