Very Long Engagement [DVD] [2005] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

The execution or judicial murder of troops in the First World War is not a theme which has been extensively developed in France. Stanley Kubrick's 1957 film, "Paths of Glory", explored the subject in detail, but was denied a French showing for nearly twenty years! The French response to 1914-18 has too often been to celebrate 'gloire' and extol the stoic virtues of the poilus who fought and were slaughtered at Verdun. National angst at executions has rarely been on the menu.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film, "A Very Long Engagement", makes prominent the responsibility of the French State for the deaths of exhausted, burned out, and scared Frenchmen. It is a central theme. For every man executed at the Front, there were women and families back home, praying for a reprieve, praying for a miracle.

Audrey Tautou plays a symbolic role ... or perhaps a role she has come to symbolise. Even the French media hailed the film as "Amelie goes to War!" Comparisons have refused to go away. Tautou has a childlike quality which the film exploits: her character, Mathilde, refuses to believe that her lover has died - with so many thousands missing, only the truly innocent would search for one lost soldier. But then, every missing man was important to someone. How many people lived out their lives in the hope that a husband or son or father or lover might still be alive, somewhere?

It's a love story, it's a war film, it's a detective roman ... with comedy and tragedy and drama aplenty. Jeunet portrays nostalgic images of France, trying to recapture a sense of the period. Mathilde's country cottage is all pastoral tranquillity. The trenches are muddy, gory, and loud with violence ... and will rapidly be filled in and restored to meadowland once the war is over, as if the nation can't wait to forget.

Jeunet shoots the film in faux sepia, giving it that contemporary feel, as if he has recorded the very years after the end of war. He departs, somewhat, from Sebastien Japrisot's novel - which he has described as having 'Ameliesque' qualities. Mathilde could be Amelie's grandmother - both films rely on the heroine's dynamic naiveté.

Sentimental in places, cute, quirky, romantic, with episodes of visual poetry, it's hard to describe "A Very Long Engagement" as an anti-war film. It certainly portrays the horrors in grim detail, but it is a portrayal which is somewhat neutered. Perhaps that is inevitable. It is seen from the point-of-view of Mathilde, so some of the images would be sanitised. And the underlying emotion is one of hope, of refusal to give up hope.

Jeunet does make the film more comedic than the book. Perhaps he felt he had to relieve the tension. Perhaps he was exploiting the talents of a wonderful ensemble of actors, for the civilian characters are certainly allowed to indulge in slapstick humour.

Jodie Foster gives a convincing performance as a French mother, trying to get pregnant so her husband will be sent home. She has a pretty much faultless French accent. Her role, meanwhile contrasts with that of Tautou's. Mathilde represents a gentler, more innocent sexuality and femininity. Foster gets quite wanton in her role, while the other major female character, Tina Lombardi, is a whore who parallels Mathilde's search for her missing man ... but with more deadly intent.

Mathilde remains frail, vulnerable - she wears a leg iron in the film, having succumbed to polio as a child. In the book, she is confined to a wheelchair, but uses her parent's riches and the family servants to overcome that handicap. Tautou only uses a wheelchair for occasional effect - to manipulate a couple of men. Otherwise, the leg iron becomes symbolic of her struggle against adversity, her indomitability. Sexually coy, she's the girl back home, the daughter you treasure, the iconic image of French femininity ... devoted, loving, faithful, the young girl who will grow to womanhood and motherhood and raise a nation. It's Joan of Arc, it's Marianne.

So, is "A Very Long Engagement" the exposure of a national wound, the pricking of the national conscience, the first shot in an attempt to restore the good names of all those Frenchmen who were butchered by their own side? Hardly. But it does deliver an Ameliesque blow - naïve, optimistic, tolerant, understanding. Maybe that's a start. Meantime, it's a very fine film ... and Tautou and Jeunet are apparently already talking about the next one they'll make together.

Mathilde (Audrey Tautou) is a pretty young girl who was left crippled by polio, and is being raised by her uncle and aunt. Before World War I, she fell in love with a boy called Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), but he was sent to the war and killed. Three years later, Mathilde gets a mysterious letter with shocking news: Manech was not killed in action, but condemned to death by being sent unarmed to the front lines -- and miraculously, he might still be alive.

Mathilde is determined to find her lover -- dead or alive -- and learn what really happened on that day three years ago. So she puts out ads in the papers, gathers accounts, and hires a detective to follow the cold trail. And slowly the gaps in the stories emerge, giving Mathilde clues to whether Manech died... and where he might be now.

"A Very Long Engagement" (French title: "Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles") diddles a few details from the novel, but is faithful to it in the ways that matter -- the "MMM" inscriptions, the non-linear storytelling, the horrors of World War I. In some ways, it seems almost impossible to transfer onto film without creating a pretentious mess -- but it wasn't.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet proves that "Amelie" was no fluke, but this time he relies mostly on visual artistry, rather than in magical realism. He also reminds us, by displaying the French countryside along with flashbacks of the front lines, that war is stupid and wasteful. But it's not an obvious, slam-in-your-face reminder. Like the romance, it's delicate and wistful.

The only problem with "A Very Long Engagement" is the "long" part -- it's truly exquisite, but it does drag a bit. Since it can be summed up as "girl searches for her seemingly dead lover," there are only a few twists along the way. But the beautiful visuals may make up for that in part. The cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel is particularly striking, tinted in sepia or black and white. The entire movie has the feeling of an old photograph brought to life.

The love between Manech and Mathilde is not a grand passion, but it is a very real love -- it's not implausible to believe that two such people might have existed. Tautou is sweetly elfin as Mathilde, creating a likable heroine that it's impossible not to root for. Ulliel gives an equally good performance as the boyish, naive Manech, a perfect match for Mathilde.

"A Very Long Engagement" is a truly beautiful follow-up to the magical "Amelie" -- a war story, a love story, and a mystery all in one. Enchanting.