A very long engagement (2004)

[fizz]

A very long engagement:
 
Playfully imaginative anti war romance. French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet is an artist of inventive visual trickery and infectious optimism. What do you expect from he who gave us the wonderful Amelie? In a manner that speaks of expertise, he juggles death in gruesome war trenches and love on a lighthouse with perfect poise. His usual collaborator Audrey Tautou this time is Mathilde, a limp young woman whose fiancee Manech is enlisted in the army during WW1. Along with 5 other soldiers he is charged with death for self-inflicted injury invoked under the guise of deserting his nation in an effort to, at best, return home, or at worst, leave the trenches for the relative comfort of an army field clinic. Many years later, Mathilde receives a letter telling her Manech may in fact be alive. From there on, she struggles with her own personal search amid an onslaught of flashbacks and subjective half-truths (ala Kurasawa's Rashomon) from the many people that she meets.

Much like Amelie, there are small journeys that comprise the anecdotal running time of the film, and they range from pleasant, to heartwarming to some that are even silly. In a film as episodic in nature as this, there are bound to be a few that stand out - and there is one such subplot with Jodie Foster, as the wife of one of the 5 accussed, who sleeps with the best friend of her husband so she can have a sixth child (Which would grant her impotent husband a government pardon to return home) is the strongest arc in the film and could have been a movie all on its own. Despite knowing that this is all grave and serious subject matter and even though the film is more elaborate and labrynthine than it should perhaps be, it remains intermittendly funny, touching and delightful.

Rating: 4/5

[captainhowdy]

Fizz, if you haven't watched it yet, I encourage you to check out Jean-Pierre Jeunet's brilliant Delicatessen. IMHO, the best one of the three (AVLE, Delicatessen & Amilie).

[fizz]

Thanks for the recommendation Capt...its a movie I've heard a lot about, visually.

The topic (canabilslm) kept me away from it, but I'm starting to really enjoy Jeunet now and will pick it up.

[animatedude]

i loved this movie, but the ending was so sad.

btw, am i the only one who noticed how beautiful the scene where the guy in the airplane/helicopter throws the bomb?

[X.]

A Very Long Engagement (2004)

“A Very Long Engagement,” an epic romance set in France during WWI. This is the new film from Jean-Pierre Jeunet who also directed the Oscar-nominated “Amelie.” Based on an internationally acclaimed novel by Sebastien Japrisot, “Engagement” has nuance and irreverence; it has heartfelt drama and slapstick comedy but also harrowing violence all delivered with unrestrained matter-of-factness. This type of execution is also suspect: it can makes the audience wonder if such designs are meant to appeal to everyone and antagonise no one. It can make us question a film’s obvious effability.

Audrey Tautou plays Mathilde, a young woman who was crippled by polio as a child. For all the scars of her past she finds comfort and love in her childhood friend Manech (Gaspard Ulliel); they are engaged to be married. But once the war breaks out Manech is off fighting for the ideals of his country. Some of the war sequences are just breathtaking. I learnt how tortured a life the soldiers lived and why some of them resorted to self-mutilation in order to be disqualified from the infantry. It was a risk because if their deception is discovered they faced imminent capital punishment. When news of Manech’s death reaches Mathilde she refuses to believe it for her heart says otherwise. Thus begins her desperate search for the truth and an investigation into the lives (and deaths) of four soldiers who served with Manech. Audrey Tautou plays her cripple character without groping for our sympathy. Her performance is quite frankly the best reason you should see the film.

Somewhere in “A Very Long Engagement” is a terrific war epic that never comes to be. The film is borne out of director Jeunet’s good intentions to indulge us in his kind of grandiose filmmaking. He fails because his love story does not work. We empathise with Mathilde and Manech but do no root for them. Although their affections are clearly relayed through a regular barrage of flashbacks, our interest in their wellbeing is rarely sustained. The film is exquisite in its cinematography and production values but the story writhes and sputters in the hope that we will stick around for a much delayed payoff. ak


Rating:
out of 

[kaytee]

Fizz can I get a copy of this?

[fizz]

Fizz can I get a copy of this?

Sure, I'll call you tonight after I get home.