A Very Long Engagement

I just kept missing my chance to see this film when it was released at the early part of this year and I finally got around to it on NetFlix. French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and actress Audrey Tautou, who showed their immense talents in "Amelie" (one of my favorite films) have been re-united with each other in this World War I romantic drama filled with colorful characters. in fact, Jeunet utilizes many of the same actors in all of his films, and if you have seen Amelie or City of Lost Children, you will recognize some of the other actors.

From the opening sequences where the voice-over narration of Florence Thomasssin sets the stage for what is to come, we know that we are in good hands and that this romantic saga will be something completely different from others in the genre. While following all the characters in "A Very Long Engagement" turns out to be quite a challenge at times, Bruno Delbonnel's exceptional cinematography makes watching this French movie a memorable experience.

In one of the year's most well-filmed motion pictures, images of bloody battlefields contrast dramatically with peaceful countryside scenes. Ambitious in scope, the film chillingly depicts the horrors of war while focusing on the courage of a young woman who searches for her fiancé, a soldier declared missing in action at the end of World War I.

Mathilde (Audrey Tautou) is a perky young woman who has a limp due to a childhood bout with polio. She lives on a farm in Breton with her Aunt Benedicte (Chantal Neuwith) and Uncle Sylvain (Dominique Pinon) and receives a regular stipend from an inheritance left by her parents. She plays the tuba and is so acquainted with death that she often repeats the mantra "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." But in her heart is a fierce and loyal passion for Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), her childhood boyfriend and fiance who is the son of a lighthouse keeper. When he goes off to the trenches of World War I, she is very lonely and confident that he will return. She even plays cute fate games with herself to try and ensure his safety.

But in the early scenes of the film, five French soldiers who have been convicted of self-mutilation to escape duty, are sentenced to death. They are marched to the no-man's land between their comrades' front and the Germans ("Jerries") to fend for themselves without guns or food. Along with Manech, who is suffering from shock, are Bastoche, Six-Sous, Ange Bassignano, and Benoit Notre-Dame. When Mathilde decides to find out for herself what really happened to Manech, she hires a private investigator to find out more about these men. Through letters, photographs, interviews with war survivors, news items, and trips to a wartime archives unit, Mathilde begins a complicated and energy depleting quest that gives her an overview of the brutality of war, the arbitrary decisions made by commanders, and the heroism of ordinary men who are just trying to stay alive with bullets whizzing overhead and bombs blowing holes in the ground surrounding them.

Returning to the film’s incredible visual appeal, I must say that some of the scenes in “A Very Long Engagement” took my breath away. In flashbacks, Mathilde and Manech are shown as children playing in a lighthouse, and one brief shot captures Mathilde dangling dangerously from a very high railing. Later, a zeppelin blows up inside a hangar at the end of an extremely suspenseful sequence. Obviously, Jeunet has taken several cues from Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" in his realistic portrait of warfare. He has given a minor role of a soldier's wife to Jodie Foster who, speaking French, pulls off this small part with the requisite simplicity and dignity. There is also the sad tale of a woman seeking vengeance for her lover — one of the five men treated so harshly by the military. But the emotional center of the film is Audrey Tautou, who shines as Mathilde, a woman who suffers one setback after another and yet refuses to give up her quest. Her yearning for Manech is an ardent flame that is maintained in the face of innumerable disappointments, dead ends, and mistaken notions. For all romantic souls, this is a film to savor and take to heart. While a bit lengthy, at over 2 hours and 10 minutes, it is a wonderful film to enjoy and it depicts the unswerving course of true love.