A Very Long Engagement
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.49 You Save: $13.48 (68%) Availability: Usually ships in 7 to 10 days Buy Used: from $1.00 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of A Very Long Engagement
Movie Review: Excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
With the possible exception of America's Claire Danes, the French actress Audrey Tautou is probably the most interesting actress alive to simply watch onscreen. It's not that Danes and Tautou are not beautiful, they are. But they are not gorgeous screen sirens; they have an accessibility to them that makes ordinary men feel that they could some day have a girl like that fall in love with them. This is because they radiate, they simple glow with presence. Tautou, who first came to American filmgoers' attention with the smash hit comedy Amélie, is also the lead star of A Very Long Engagement, the new film by the director of that earlier film, Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Tautou not only engages with her ability to simply radiate, but because she can do more acting simply with her face than most actresses can do with their whole bodies, and in this film she shows it, playing a World War One era polio victim in search of her lover who is presumed dead.
The film is gorgeously shot, in unrealistic tones- ranging from golden to sepia to gray, in the sense of the trench warfare....This is a great film, with scenes of battle carnage every bit the equal of the ridiculously overlauded Saving Private Ryan, but it also has believable and identifiable characters, moments of great humor and depth, and a true actress for the ages in Tautou. Whether she is scheming, playing the tuba, consoling herself, or playing a little mind game to bargain for the safe return of her lover (which she does several times in the film), Tautou dominates the screen like few actors can....
A Very Long Engagement, adapted from a French novel by Sebastian Japrisot, is a truly terrific film, and even though it really isn't a strict war film, I would rank it right up there, just behind the best war films ever made- the aforementioned Paths Of Glory, A Thin Red Line by Terrence Malick, 1997's Regeneration, from the U.K., and Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola. Audrey Tautou is a star of the highest order, whose comparisons to that other filmic Audrey- Hepburn, are apt.
Movie Review: A unique, moving WWI epic.
Summary: 5 Stars
A romantic French WWI epic, this is a story about two life-long lovers, Mathilde and Manech, separated by the war. Having lost both parents in a transit disaster and crippled by polio, Mathilde has little more than her imagination and memories to comfort her while she anxiously awaits the return of her fiancée Manech. She refuses to accept the news of a German siege at his location as a sure sign of his demise, and even a visit to his grave isn't convincing enough. She enlists the aid of a bumbling investigator to find some leads, but ultimately it is Mathilde herself, strapped with resolute determination, piecing together the intricate pieces of the puzzle that make up the fate of her beloved Manech. Like in Jeunet's "Amelie" we are led through a gauntlet of mysterious, passionate, and perverse characters. One of those characters is played by Jodie Foster, who delivers quite a blazing performance in just a few minutes on screen. Director Jeunet creates a contrast of realities by cutting from the beautiful French countryside to the bustle of Paris, and of course to the WWI battlefield. The battlefield scenes are not for the squeamish - filmed with such nightmarish realism that rivals the brutality depicted in the famous opening minutes of "Saving Private Ryan." This is an immensely moving story about hope, stuffed with humor, horror, and humanity. Photographed with such painful dreamlike beauty and set to a haunting score, A Very Long Engagement is one of the year's most magnificent films.
Ironically enough, this film has been shunned by French critics for being "too American." Unfortunately American audiences will mostly stay way from a film spoken in French (though it is subtitled very well in English). Americans love war movies, and this is one of the very best to be made in the past decade. Be brave and see a film with subtitles, and you will not regret your decision.
Recommended if you liked: Cold Mountain, The English Patient, Amelie.
Movie Review: Nothing Short of a Masterpiece of Filmmaking.
Summary: 5 Stars
I have become a huge fan of Jean-Pierre Jeunet. This is the third film of his that I have seen and I have nothing but praise for it. I remember seeing Amelie on DVD. I recall that viewing very well and with fondness. Jeunet's engagement into American film with Alien: Resurrection was also incredible.
Mathilde (Tautou) and Manech (Ulliel) are naive young lovers who are estranged before they can marry. Manech is shipped off to serve in World War I. Mathilde is certain that her fiance will return home safely, however as time passes by and Manech does not return - her support group grows more and more doubtful of Manech's is even alive. But Mathilde stays headstrong, and when she discovers that Manech was among five court marshaled soldiers who runaway from a POW camp, she goes on a complex journey to uncover her fiance's story. Story minutiae are plentiful in this magnificent French movie that fills the senses and is truly complex - it requires you to pay attention. Without a doubt the cinematography is the star. Tautou (who first collaborated with director Jeunet in Amelie) delivers a sumptuous performance, and the battle sequences border on eloquent.
We get great acting in this film, and it would impractical to mention them all. However, the primary and most obvious is Audrey Tautou. This film help cast her out into huge role, one perhaps arguably more significant to her as an actress than even The Da Vinci Code. She may not exemplify the innocence captured many as in Amelie, she nonetheless exemplified all of the charms of the Amelie character with her portrayal of Mathilde. My take on this is that Jeunet has to be credited for extricating the range that Tautou is capable of. The one main question that remains to be asked is, has she reached her "Peter Principle." I would argue no. I can't recommend this film more - as I can watch it again and again. It's nothing short of a masterpiece of filmmaking.
Miguel Llora
Movie Review: Amazingly Rich Story
Summary: 5 Stars
It's no secret to those who know me that I'm a fan of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's directorial work. But to be honest I did not think he could outdo himself after Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain.
I was wrong.
This is a story with love, loss, drama, misery, and joy so profound it cannot be expressed in mere words. It's a war move, chick-flick, murder mystery, and comedy all rolled into one. And though this sounds like a real mash-up it works... beautifully.
This is a story with many arcs, multiple perspectives, and varied interesting characters. Even the production notes are surprising. The "wooden hand" for instance (you'll know when you see it) is a real functioning work; not CGI.
Bruno Delbonnel's, who also filmed Amelie, cinematography continues to amaze. He stands head and shoulders above virtually all others. Delbonnel continues to produce the longest most difficult continuous shots I've ever seen; some of which you'd swear are impossible.
What many may not know about this film is that Jeunet accepted funds from both the National French film bureau (Commission Nationale du FILM FRANCE) and Warner Brothers. This angered some French who claimed the acceptance of foreign funds invalided it as a true French film.
I disagree. Despite the heavy financing from Warner Brothers this is Jeunet's vision and it's 100% French.
The appearance of Jodie Foster was a major surprise. In fact, not only did she speak her own lines, Jeunet claims her French was flawless. It was a nice meaty part for a cameo too.
Amazingly Jeunet seems to be able to surpass his best with each new work.
Jeunet has managed to make a film that stands up to repeated viewings. There always seems to be something new to see.
Movie Review: Manech aime Mathilde, Mathilde aime Manech
Summary: 5 Stars
It is 1917. Manech is a nineteen-year-old newly-drafted soldier in the French Army. Life is hard in the trenches, and the memory of his fiancée waiting for him at home is the only thing that keeps him going amidst gray skies, gray days and gray, bloody death. But what if he were given a medical discharge? If he is injured--not too severely--they will send him home to his beloved Mathilde, and his young life can resume. The decision made, he maims his own hand and claims it was an accident. It is his bad luck that so many others have had this same idea. He is not believed, and instead is sentenced to die as a traitor, cast out of the trenches into the barren no-man's-land between the lines with four other men, each with a similar injury--perhaps self-inflicted, perhaps not.
It is 1920. Mathilde is still not satisfied with the puzzling official explanations she has been given for her fiancé's death, and nurses the not-so-silent conviction that he is out there somewhere, lost but alive. After all, she says, if he were dead, she would know. Ignoring the sensible advice of those around her, she sets out on a quest to find out what really happened on that lonely battlefield in France. The story is revealed piece by piece, each new puzzle piece completely altering the composition until we cannot be sure what is true, what is false, and what is mere interpretation . . .
The plot is elegant and masterful, the acting is both wonderfully human and beautifully precise, and the technical aspects of the film are stunning. This is one of the best films of 2004. It's too bad France refused to submit it to the Oscars; it would have given Million Dollar Baby a run for its money.