Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2756 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-01-02
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 134 minutes

Synopsis
This World War I mystery finds limitless beauty in the nostalgia of loss. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, whose whimsical AMELIE riveted audiences, A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT also stars Audrey Tautou the 21st century's Audrey Hepburn in the stubbornly emotional role of a widow in denial. Here she is Mathilde, a waifish young woman with a pronounced limp from childhood polio. Living with her quirky aunt and uncle in a farmhouse by the sea, and waiting desperately for her fiance Manech (Gaspard Ulliel) to return from the war, she believes that if he were truly lost she would feel it in her heart. Thus, when the bad news arrives Manech and five fellow soldiers were exiled to No Man's Land for shooting off their own fingers in hope of being discharged Mathilde refuses to believe he is dead. Instead, she begins her own investigation into Manech's infantry, hiring a private detective and tracking down the wives and girlfriends of each of Manech's compatriots. Conducting countless interviews, Mathilde pieces together Manech's war stories which are told in earthshaking flashbacks involving gruesome explosions, flying guts, and massive suffering. And yet, the all-in-this-together humanity of these awful scenes, and the heartfelt bravery with which Mathilde absorbs the details of each battle, is undeniably moving. Jodie Foster appears as Elodie, one of the widows, in a charismatic yet muted performance and with a flawless accent. However, the most intriguing of the widows is Tina Lombardi (Marion Cotillard), a thrilling dominatrix-assassin bent on avenging her lover. A timeless masterwork that raises the bar for breathtaking camerawork, vivid landscapes, and fantastical storytelling, A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT is adapted from the novel by Sebastien Japriscot.

Customer Reviews

A rich mixture
This movie bears the unmistakably imprint of a Jeunet, even if the territory is somewhat different to his other works. The warm, yellowish tint on the glorious cinematography, the stylised images accompanying the sharp narrative at regular intervals, the presence of many members of the Jeunet repertory company (Dominique Pinon, Urbain Cancelier, Ticky Holgado and of course the mesmerising Audrey Tatou, to name but a few), supplemented by a fine cast including Oscar winners Marion Cotillard and Jodie Foster. His quirky style is not to everybody's taste, though the charm of Amelie won over the hearts of millions.

This is actually a detective thriller set against the first world war. Like many thrillers, the viewer needs to concentrate to follow the importance of minor plot details. Here, the subtitles are helpful (and unlike the other reviewer, I need and appreciate the English for hard of hearing subtitles!)

This attention to detail is indicative of the values of the whole film. The scenarios, particularly post-1918 Paris are visualised and recreated beautifully. Battlefield scenes are also hugely realistic, impressively so and far more than other movies featuring trench warfare. You are conscious throughout the lavish set design that this is a big budget movie that underperformed at the box office yet succeeds in almost every area that matters.

I've given 4 stars primarily because the pudding is a bit too rich, and on occasion detracts from what is essentially a simple story. Perhaps it needs more pace and more effective racking up of the tension towards the denouement, though I promise you will enjoy a sumptuous journey with the film as it stands. Jeunet is and always will be a favourite director of mine because he has more invention and imagination than almost any other mainstream director - and long may it last!

A beautiful and well structured film
When I purchased this film I did not know that it was a French film, I watched the trailer and read a bit about it and decided to take a punt on this.

I hate films with sub-titles, although this is the only way to understand the film (unless you speak fluent French or German) I did not find the film hard to watch as there is not a huge amount of sub-titles to read.

I thought that the choice of colours that they chose for the film gave it that little extra and makes it different to the vast majority of films, apart from the war scenes the main colours used are dark shades and a kind of golden/yellow with very little use of other colour/s at all.

The love story is told very well and is very well acted, especially Audrey Tautou who puts in an excellent performance, plus there's a small, but important role for Jodie Foster who's French at least to my ear was impeccable.

There are some good light hearted moments too, mainly provided by the postman, I did not find this a heavy film and some of he deaths were particularly well planned, inventive and executed.

Highly recommended for foreign film lovers, plus those who don't mind too many sub-titles.

Woman after the war
A Very Long Engagement does a surprisingly deft job of balancing the absurdities and horrors of war with the absurdities of everyday life and the tenuous nature of hope and history, both ever changing and prey to the unbalancing influence of the smallest detail. More than most, this is really a film about the enduring pains of war that linger long after the last shots are fired and the battlefields are grown over as Mathilde's journey for her lost love goes from hospitals to widows to cripples to the thousands of official forms that once meant life or death. It's here that the film's lavish budget is really felt, allowing the story to span a wounded country eager to forget but unable to, as well as recreating the front lines. The reconstruction of the trench scenes is similarly impressive, although, as in Jasprisot's novel, the attitude of the poilous is much more sympathetic than it would have been in reality (deserters and self-inflicted wound cases were widely hated by soldiers at the front, who generally felt they should take their chances alongside them).

Its use of narration pays dividends, establishing that each of the five condemned man has a life and people that care about them. It's still done with Jeunet's characteristic quirkiness and black visual humor, but that's all too the good. And while there are some similarities, Tatou is not exactly Amelie here, all-too-ready to dismiss a helpful source as a slut in her own small-minded determination. The little games she plays with fate might seem whimsical, but she loses as many as she wins. Even the ending that proved so unacceptable for US audiences by opting for neither an obviously happy/unhappy ever after ending is just right, leaving its characters in limbo but not without hope.

A final touch of absurdity is added by Jeunot's audio commentary, where he complains over the end credits that despite spending more money by filming in France with French cast and crew entirely in the French language, the film was met with astonishing hostility by the French film industry which immediately declared it a foreign film and moved that it be forced to repay it's small government subsidy and be ruled ineligible for all French awards. I guess now he knows how George Stevens felt after being persuaded to shoot The Greatest Story Ever Told with a US crew in Monument Valley instead of cheaper foreign shores now only to be ridiculed and abused by the industry for his troubles... In filmmaking, like war, nothing really changes.

Although the one-disc version does include an audio commentary, it's definitely worth springing for the two-disc version for the 73-minute documentary and deleted scenes instead.