Description: The 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
Amazon.com: 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 Fetzer
I liked it, but not THAT much... I'm usually a sap for good love stories, but this one didn't have what I am normally into. Perhaps it was the somewhat foreign nature of the film that did not appeal to me or perhaps the story line felt a little choppy at times but I could not connect to the story the way I wanted to. I tried, but the movie was just shy of 4 stars.
absolutely first rate depiction of war and young love 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.
One of the best pictures ever made but has been overlooked. The how-it-was-filmed section is a wonderful lesson film making. The slop of the trenches, desperation and violence makes this feel real. We should all know a woman like this woman of substance. Watch for Jodie Foster as the wife who has to make a baby to get her husband home. She happened to be in France at the time.
a fine bottle of smooth wine This movie has become one of my very favorite movies. I have watched it four times and every time I get something new from it. Each time my heart swells with admiration at this perfect example of the film makers art. It is a joy to watch.
Where to begin to describe its virtues? The scrupulously accurate sets, circa 1917? The magnificent vistas, whether the Brittany coast or the trenches of northern France? The attention to detail: the wagons & autos on the Place de l'Opéra; the one man shelters dug into the side of the trench; the broken Christ and Cross in the opening shot and the later reference to a church?
Depth of meaning? "Bingo Crepuscule". Before the War 'Bingo' was the nickname for the French national lottery.
'Crepuscule' is French for "twilight". Twilight: the 'no-man's-land' between the warring sides. War? What is war but a national lottery of life and death? The draft is even conducted by chance by pulling numbers at random......and you need five numbers to get 'bingo'....... ......"Bingo Crepuscule".....
Which brings us to why you can watch this film several times: there is absolutely nothing wasted in this film. Every piece of information the film maker gives you is needed. Tuck it into your sleeve, you'll need it later. Example? The tuba: sometimes Matilda plays a distress call, sometimes music...... but.... do you note when she plays what? It's not at random.
The acting? Ah, the acting, such an evenness of excellence, it is like fine smooth wine. You're not even aware how good it is, it goes down so easily - every actor, every part; great and small.
Even the small little dramas are deftly done, like mini operas: the whore killing the fat man or the man in the tunnel. Ah, and how well all the little dramas are so skillfully woven into the fabric of the larger drama!
Even the sound track gives important information: it wasn't until the third time I watched it that I realized the metallic 'thunk' was a dud bomb.... which drove a character into a basement beneath a church....(remember the wheat field)......
There are so many little jewels in this film. It is a true pleasure to watch.....again and again.......each time you come back a little richer.
A note to Cotillard fans... As Tina Lombardi in A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT, Marion Cotillard won the French Academy Award, the Cesar, for Best Supporting Actress. She was on the screen for nine minutes, and in her mid-20s. What's interesting to new fans of the 2008 Best Actress Oscar winner is the beginning, in Cotillard's career, of her movement away from the light comedy roles she had played early on (most commonly known to US movie audiences in A BIG FISH, A GOOD YEAR, and the French TAXI 1,2 and 3) into darker, more intense roles. A treasure on the path is FURIA, in which Cotillard plays a resistance fighter (a longer review can be read there). Though Lombardi is mostly talked about in A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT, when she does appear as The Officer Killer, she transfixes the audience. Her scene with Audrey Tautou in prison was a revelation; Tina Lombardi is tough and hard, but once given a message from her dead lover, she weeps one pure tear. It's an added pleasure of A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT to see Cotillard several years ago doing small roles so well, and a pleasure as well to see Jodie Foster, whose fluent French (acquired at a French-language academy in Los Angeles when she was a child) helped disguise her as a French farmer's wife.
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