A Very Long Engagement
by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Andr? Dussollier, Audrey Tautou, Chantal Neuwirth, Dominique Pinon, Gaspard UllielDirector: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); French (Original Language); German (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 133 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-07-12
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of A Very Long Engagement
Movie Review: absolutely first rate depiction of war and young love
Summary: 5 Stars
This film has entered the pantheon of films that I can see over and over and yet understand more on each viewing - it is so subtle and intricate, as the mystery unravels, that there are always additional details to find and savor. That makes this one of the best films I have ever seen on many levels.
First, you have the mystery and horror of the Great War. I live in France, and every town has a monument full of names on it for those who died in it. This film will make you feel what it cost, in very human terms, both in those lost and in the psychological destruction of the survivors. While I have read about what it was like, this film is a wonderfully fresh view of it.
Second, there is a story of pure young love, which envelopes the life of a spectacularly quirky beauty. This is perfection, so moving that I feel tears well up every time I see it. With Mathilde and her tuba by the shore, or the hand of the sleeping Maneche on her breast, you feel what it is like for all of us the first time. The poetry is undeniable, beyond melodrama, in acting that is uniformly brilliant.
Third, you have the mystery: Mathilde feels Maneche is still alive, and barely wavers in her search to find him or to discover what happened, a faith that survives beyond her lamentation at his grave. This enters her into a unique adventure, bringing her into contact with a society in change.
Fourth, you view a wider tableau of people within the society. In this respect, the film is as good as a Balzac novel, portraying the tensions and aspirations of people embedded in their time, which in my opinion is the best way to understand the power and beauty of history. France is portrayed here in the early 1920s, a very beautiful country with underdeveloped culture and economy, in astonishingly vivid and accurate detail - you see the charm and poverty of the old Europe that is barely an echo today. It is here that you get cameos by Jodie Foster, one of the best roles I have seen of this truly fine actress, and many others (all French, I think) whome I did not know. Foster is one of the many people that Mathilde seeks out in her search, gaining crucial information yet also helping a fellow traveller in pain.
Fifth, there is a psychological depth in the choices of all the characters. Mathilde becomes a wise and tenacious adult, marked by her pain and yet only dimly aware of her potential. She very much reminded me of my wife. She chooses life, while others take more destructive paths or show themselves unable to grow beyond the unimaginable circumstances they survived unwhole. Here, you see Mathilde's doppelganger, a prostitute bent on savage revenge. But there are so many others, each of whom adds a crucial piece to the puzzle in an unfolding story of intricate complexity.
Warmly recommended.
Summary of A Very Long Engagement
Both epic and intimate, A Very Long Engagement reunites Audrey Tautou and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the star and director of the hugely popular Amelie. A young woman named Mathilde (Tautou, Happenstance)separated from her lover by World War I refuses to believe he's been killed and launches an investigation into his fate--an investigation that spins in all directions, creating dozens of miniature stories (including that of an Italian prostitute avenging the death of her own lover by elaborate means) that shift to and fro in time. The dazzling curlicues of narrative put brutality and tenderness back to back, shifting between crushing inevitabilities and miraculous rescues with deft storytelling skill and the lush visual style of the director of Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children. Through it all, Tautou--fierce and luminous--anchors the movie effortlessly. She's among the most emotionally engaging actresses in cinema, with the kind of expressive beauty that transcends language. A gorgeous, far-reaching film; the huge cast also includes Jodie Foster (The Silence of the Lambs), Gaspard Ulliel (Strayed), and Dominique Pinon (Alien: Resurrection). --Bret FetzerThe film is set in France near the end of World War I in the deadly trenches of the Somme, in the gilded Parisien halls of power, and in the modest home of an indomitable provincial girl. It tells the story of this young woman's relentless, moving and sometimes comic search for her fiancC)e, who has disappeared. He is one of five French soldiers believed to have been court-martialed under mysterious circumstances and pushed out of an allied trench into an almost-certain death in no-man's land. What follows is an investigation into the arbitrary nature of secrecy, the absurdity of war, and the enduring passion, intuition and tenacity of the human heart.
DVD Features:
Audio Commentary
Deleted Scenes:With Director audio commentary
Documentaries:Paris in the 20'sThe Zepplin Explosion
Featurette:The Making of A Very Long Engagement
Theatrical Trailer
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