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A Very Long Engagement


Un long dimanche de fiançailles
(A Very Long Engagement)


A Very Long Engagement
Ah, to fall in love. Who doesn’t wish to feel that most wonderful sensation that can make everything else seem so pale, yet so much brighter? I know the times that I have had the pleasure to experience love for myself, it made me feel like all was right in the world and that fairy tales could come true. Yet, reality often intervenes and reminds us all that life can, and often is, harsh and cruel. That is the basic element of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s newest modern classic A Very Long Engagement.

The amazingly talented and utterly lovely Audrey Tautou returns to the big screen once again paired with one of filmmaking’s brightest sons to bring us a beautiful tale of love, loss, and hope. Mathilde (Tautou) is a soft-spoken young woman who is fortunate enough to fall in love with the man who she will eventually marry when she is still a little girl. Crippled when very young with a case of polio, Mathilde is forced to the outer rim of children’s society, not only because she feels that she cannot fit in with the other children who love to run and play, but also because children are capable of remorseless cruelty. Then enters her love to be, Manech, who lulls her into a trust that she is not used to because of his sincere kindness. That kindness will forever change Mathilde’s life.

Eventually, France calls its sons to fight the German’s in a war where their very survival is in serious jeopardy. Manech has to fight, leaving Mathilde behind to fret and worry. Unknown to all, the German’s aren’t the only people that Manech needs to be afraid of. There are also the General’s from Frances own army that are quite capable of betrayal and heartlessness. Many a soldier out of pure terror, panic, and also idiotic recklessness, injure themselves in order to be let home. One of the more popular ways of self-disfigurement is to injure the hand used to aim and fire a weapon. At the beginning of the film, we are showed five such men who, each in their own way, mutilate their hands. Manech is one of them. Too bad for them that they ever flirted with such an idea, because they are all sentenced to die for their treasonous and cowardly acts by the General who is far removed from the front and is completely dispassionate about the soldier’s plights.

Mathilde in happier days
In time Mathilde receives a message from Manech’s superior officer who says Manech is missing and presumed dead. Due to revelations that I won’t convey, Mathilde soon rejects such a preposterous idea. Manech cannot be dead, because if he were, Mathilde would feel emptiness in her heart, but it is still whole. He yet lives, and she must find him. In a series of events and adventures that would make Alfred Hitchcock proud, we slowly fit pieces of a grand puzzle together that in the end will show us not only Manech’s story, but the story of the other four that were sentenced alongside him. The film does a good job telling many tales from different perspectives, but this is really only Mathilde’s story.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s style of direction and cinematography brings to life many different scopes of filmmaking. One minute we are shown the absolute horror of war, then within a matter of moments we are able to chuckle at something quaint and cute happening back where war is only a headline. It comes across as rather shocking when we are taken back to the front, because Jeunet is so capable making us forget that Manech is facing things that would bring us to our knees in our own sheltered lives as we watch the tenacity and ferocity of Mathilde as she navigates her way through the mystery; until we are reminded once again with blood and screaming.

What I like best about a Jean-Pierre Jeunet film is that he loves to tell his stories in colorful and imaginative ways that so many other popular directors’ are unable to achieve. Where one director abuses modern technological achievements and spams the field of vision with unnecessary and pretentious special effects, Jeunet just adds a touch;
Manech faces his sentence
just to brighten the picture where it lacked before. He is a master of the canvass of film, where so many others are hacks. I love the way he respects, not only his work, but also the audience who admires him by not letting himself get carried away with graphics that often only cause distraction. That kind of painting, if you will, works so well with the stories he tells that it causes the film to almost appear dreamlike, as if even in its sadness, it is still a lovely thing to behold. I know of no other living director that can achieve the same beatific result.

All in all, this is a love story. But it is also a war movie. Yet somehow, it easily belies any easy description by being both at the same time, and also being neither. It will break your heart, and it will make you laugh. It may even cause you to pine for the type of love Mathilde and Manech share; because it is innocent and pure, until cruel life gets its muddy paws all over it. And even then, it is able to transcend the horror of it all, and go on, and on, and on.