A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles in French) is a French-American romantic drama movie directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, based on the book of the same name by Sébastien Japrisot. Starring Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Marion Cotillard, Dominique Pinon, Chantal Neuwirth, André Dussolier, Ticky Holgado, and Jodie Foster, the film was released on 27 October 2004, nominated for 2 Oscars. A Very Long Engagement was shot in Paris, France. The lighthouse scenes took place at Phare des Héaux de Bréhat, which is a historic lighthouse located on Île-de-Bréhat, Côtes-d'Armor.
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A Very Long Engagement (French: Un long dimanche de fiançailles, "A long Sunday of engagement") is a 2004 French-American romantic war drama film, co-written and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel and Marion Cotillard. It is a fictional tale about a young woman's desperate search for her fiancé who might have been killed during World War I. It was based on the 1991 novel of the same name by Sébastien Japrisot.
The movie is seen largely through the eyes of Mathilde (Audrey Tautou), an orphan with a polio limp, who senses in her soul that her man is not dead. He is Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), son of a lighthouse tender, a boy so open-faced and fresh he is known to all as Cornflower. After the war, Mathilde comes upon a letter that seems to hint that not all five died on the battlefield, and she begins the long task of tracking down eyewitnesses and survivors to find the Manech she is sure is still alive and needs her help.
Lovely Audrey Tautou and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet reteam (having previously made the delightful comedy Amelie) in the epic war drama, A Very Long Engagement, based on the novel by Sebastien Japrisot. It is a visual powerhouse of a film that defies conventional genres by melding together different themes and injecting a generous dose of period authenticity. This French language film is an emotional odyssey that keeps you guessing while it never loses sight of its humanity and even humor.Childhood friends and then lovers, Mathilde (Tatout) and Manech (Gaspard Ulliel) are separated when duty calls in World War One France. War is hell and the trench fighting that will claim countless lives begins to take its toll on men's sanity and tolerance. Manech becomes one of five soldiers arrested for cowardice because each has a self inflicted hand wound to evade the deadly fighting. But instead of execution by firing squad, the condemned men are forced into no man's land to be fodder for the German line.It is almost certain that all the prisoners died that day, but years later, in 1920, Mathilde continues in her quest to find the truth and her lover. Aided by her aunt and uncle, she enlists the help of an investigative agency and lawyer to track down the people who knew Manech. Slowly the list grows and one clue connects with another as more witnesses emerge. What starts out as a somber war romance develops into a fascinating adventure of love and mystery of fate as Mathilde follows the trail. Sure, she does get frustrated as a couple of clues are dead ends, but when a connection is established, the story leaps forward. At times the help comes from an unexpected source and at other times, sheer coincidence saves the day. There is even a subplot involving treachery and betrayal. Before long, the audience will become caught up in her journey. Is Manech alive and will Mathilde ever find him? The film's structure weaves back and forth through flashbacks with great ease and clarity. An occasional voice over narration ties up the loose ends. As the plot begins to make more sense, key scenes are retold from different viewpoints in the Rashomon style of storytelling. The battle scenes, quite grim and realistic (Saving Private Ryan type of action), are light years ahead of Paths of Glory's anthill scenes, although the opening march through the trenches is almost identical to Kubrick's 1957 classic. There is even a hint of the older favorite, Random Harvest, which also dealt with a wartime romance and search.A Very Long Engagement is blessed with a strong ensemble cast although it may require a score card to keep track of all the names. Andrey Tautou is quite good as the anxious searcher. Her beauty never detracts from her acting talent. Gaspard Ulliel reminds one of a young Ethan Hawke in his innocence amid difficult circumstances. As the wife of a key character, Jodie Foster is effective as she corresponds with Mathilde. Yes, Jodie does the French thing well, but her appearance is a bit jarring. Dominique Pinon, a favorite of Jeunet's (Alien: Resurrection, Amelie), lends good support as the uncle. Even the smaller roles are well rounded and memorable, a testament to good casting, strong writing, and Jeunet's direction.This big budget film is lengthy, but it does have the sweep of a big time novel. The production is outstanding in the authentic costumes and historic set designs of 1920. Jeunet employs cinematography and computer graphics effectively to recreate the era magnificently. He has always been a marvelous director of eye candy, and the film is wonderful to look at. Angelo Badalamenti who has spent a lot of time scoring the moody thrillers for David Lynch is allowed to flourish here with a lushly romantic, emotional soundtrack.Doubtless this is very likely the ultimate French tearjerker, a kind of Gone with the Wind meets Cold Mountain type of film. It serves as a commentary on war, a romantic fable, a revenge tale, and an intricate mystery. It is a film that defies pigeonholing and that's part of the fun. It also has well defined characters and nice touches of detail and exposition. In short, it is one powerful movie to close out 2004.***1/2 stars out of ****
JUSTICE HARVEY BROWNSTONE: Dear friends and family of Edie and Thea. We are gathered together today to witness a very happy and long-awaited event. Edie and Thea, you are here to obtain legal and societal recognition of your decision to accept each other totally and permanently. Over the past 41 years, you have been dancing. You have come to know and love each other. You have found joy and meaning together. And you have chosen to live your lives together. Now you seek to unite in marriage. And to this moment, you have brought the fullness of your hearts, the dreams that bind you together, and that particular personality and spirit which is uniquely your own.
Everything important about "A Very Long Engagement" -- its manufactured storybook conjuring, its sudden, unexpected sweeps of scope and emotion -- can be seen in the fields. Time and again this World War I drama returns to the French countryside where the worst battles of that war were fought. When officials come to draft a farmer enjoying an idyllic ride with his wife, a wind bends the long grass on either side of them as if nature itself were bowing down at the prospect of manmade catastrophe. We see that catastrophe in the battle scenes -- vast, desolate mudscapes that suck the life out of the soldiers with every step. The land is so bleak that its purpose seems to be to snuff out whatever life ventures into it. It's as if the soldiers picking each other off are simply doing the bidding of the fates.
Bolstered by nothing more than blind faith that her lover, Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), is still alive, Mathilde begins hunting down the soldiers who were in the trenches with him, along with their lovers and relatives. She pursues her sleuthing through a flurry of letters, documents, private interviews, piecing the story together. The plot is insanely complicated (and the movie doesn't simplify it), but Japrisot gives you the feeling that you've latched on to something really neat. Following it is like listening to a tall tale where you periodically lose the thread but stay invested in what's going on because the company you get to keep is so ingratiating.
On some level everything in the movie, from the re-creation of the war to the beautifully articulated wooden hand sported by a bartender (one of the touches not found in the novel), works like a dazzling mechanical toy. Jeunet doesn't hide the artificiality of his work. He wants us to be delighted in the way the gears mesh and whir. Jeunet comes as close as any filmmaker can, in the age of CGI, to the charm of the jerry-built. The artifacts in his movies are both reassuringly worn, bearing the recognizable marks of use, and odd enough to have the alien beauty of something from very long ago. When Jeunet is at his best (and it's safe to say that the very early French fantasy director George Méliès would have enjoyed "The City of Lost Children") he puts sequences on-screen that, in their intricate visual and narrative design and the woolly precision of their execution, achieve a grave, melting frivolity.
At times, Jeunet may rely too heavily on the effects that, in the wake of "Saving Private Ryan," have made war the newest frontier of splatter movies. He should have avoided the temptation of a big, showy sequence about the destruction of a field hospital. But Jeunet has given the moments of carnage just the right degree of absurdity and an impeccable timing. At times, the bullets zing to their targets like the punch line of a sick joke. The battle scenes have the texture of something vivid and richly imagined. The cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, though he relies far too much on close-ups, composes brilliantly in the CinemaScope screen and displays an admirably varied palette. The romanticism of Mathilde's quest to find her beloved Manech doesn't sugarcoat the war scenes. Her stubbornness plays as a humane reaction to war, the instinct of someone clinging to the very notion of being human that war (justified or not) threatens to destroy.
Jeunet is not so wrapped up in the visuals that he neglects the actors. The secondary characters who are so winning in the book are abundant enough to allow the director to scatter good supporting roles like plums to his amazing cast. Among those people who turn up are Tchéky Karyo as a French officer; Denis Lavant, with his simian mug, as one of the condemned men (he gets the best exit in the movie); Ticky Holgado as the dapper elder detective who faithfully aids Nathalie, Elina Löwensohn as a German woman who lost her brother in the war; Dominique Pinon, whose friendly, gnomic presence has graced all of Jeunet's films, as Mathilde's uncle; Chantal Neuwirth, an image of bounteous, welcoming hospitality, as her aunt; and -- spectacularly -- Marion Cotillard as the tale's dark avenging Corsican angel. Her appearances are so startling that they very nearly derail the film. Most of these people are more familiar to European audiences than American ones. But you don't have to have seen an actor before to recognize who has presence, and the roles are miniature demonstrations of star power. "A Very Long Engagement" also features a surprise appearance from an American actress whose name I won't reveal but who turns in the best performance she's given in some time.
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