When Amelie Poulain landed on our cinema screens in 2001, both its director and stars were heralded as triumphant newcomers. Not so. Amelie herself, Audrey Tautou, was well on her way to prominence as a leading actor in French film, her love interest Matthieu Kassovitz had redefined the world's ... Read review
From the highly acclaimed Director and star of Amelie, comes the truly amazing story of ... more
one woman's journey to discover the truth behind her lover's disappearance, whilst battling against the secrecy and absurdity of War.In 1919, Mathilde was 19 years ...
From the highly acclaimed Director and star of Amelie, comes the truly amazing story of ... more
one woman's journey to discover the truth behind her lover's disappearance, whilst battling against the secrecy and absurdity of War. In 1919, Mathilde was 19 years...
From the director and star of Amlie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet and AudreyTautou) comes a very ... more
different love story, one that is based on theacclaimed novel by Sebastien Japrisot, the adapted screenplay waswritten by Jeunet & Guillaume Laurant. Special Feature...
A treat here for connoisseurs of Angelo Badalamenti, and for anyone with a passing ... more
interest in film scores, A Very Long Engagement will serve to add to the legacy of Badalamenti's impeccable credentials. The soundtrack to the World War One period film from Amelie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, this piece is an example of exactly how to score a film shrouded in death, confusion and humanity. Unlike the loathsome bombast that, say, a Danny Elfman score would have provided, Badalamenti simply makes the most of minor key themes, arranged for an elegant but eerie, beautifully played orchestra. Anyone familiar with his work on David Lynch's Mulholland Drive will find it familiarly excellent. However where that score was full of apocalyptic climaxes, "A Very Long Engagement" remains rooted in quiet, albeit menacing territory. Only in the End Titles does the music slip into something approaching Hollywood schmaltz, but even then it is kept in check by some very effective refrains that tether the piece to its mysterious foundation. Perhaps too mournful to be played casually and regularly, this is still an effective accompaniment to a film about the human side of war, and in its aims, is highly enjoyable and successful.--Thom Allott
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From the director and star of Amlie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet and AudreyTautou) comes a very ... more
different love story, one that is based on theacclaimed novel by Sebastien Japrisot, the adapted screenplay waswritten by Jeunet & Guillaume Laurant. Special Features: Audio commentary from director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (in French,subtitled) Trailer Deleted scenes with optional audio commentary from Jean-PierreJeunet The Making Of A Very Long Engagement -documentary Paris In The 1920s - featurette Before The Explosion -a documentary about the Zeppelinexplosion
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
Production Year: 2000 - Drama - Director: Giuseppe Tornatore - Original Language: Italian - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Monica Bellucci, Giuseppe Sulfaro, Luciano Federico, Matilde Piana
Advantages: Strong performances and cinematography Disadvantages: Occasional clunky storytelling
...her way to prominence as a leading actor in French film, her love interest Matthieu Kassovitz had redefined the world's view of Paris through the seminal street flick La Haine (like 8 Mile, but with a better soundtrack) and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet was working with a smaller budget than he had for Alien Resurrection, a gig he'd landed by virtue of having helmed a brace of corking French science-fiction fantasies.
In fact, Amelie ... ...But the English-speaking world is a bit condescending about this kind of thing, so we just patronised the hell out of them.
That was then. Now, however, Jeunet hopefully finds his audiences better prepared. Based on a novel, his fifth feature film sees him reassemble many of his regular actors to support Amelie (sorry, Mathilde) on her quest to work out what happened after her fiance, Maneche, was exiled to no-man's land for self-mutilation ... more
When Amelie Poulain landed on our cinema screens in 2001, both its director and stars were heralded as triumphant newcomers. Not so. Amelie herself, Audrey Tautou, was well on her way to prominence as a leading actor in French film, her love interest Matthieu Kassovitz had redefined the world's view of Paris through the seminal street flick La Haine (like 8 Mile, but with a better soundtrack) and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet was working with a smaller budget than he had for Alien Resurrection, a gig he'd landed by virtue of having helmed a brace of corking French science-fiction fantasies.
In fact, Amelie was just the next step for a host of experienced French talent. But the English-speaking world is a bit condescending about this kind of thing, so we just patronised the hell out of them.
That was then. Now, however, Jeunet hopefully finds his audiences better prepared. Based on a novel, his fifth feature film sees him reassemble many of his regular actors to support Amelie (sorry, Mathilde) on her quest to work out what happened after her fiance, Maneche, was exiled to no-man's land for self-mutilation in the trenches in 1917.
To classify the film is hard, although there are many scenes of trench warfare (which must surely rank among the most evocative ever filmed, covered in mud and gore as they are) the action takes place after the war. Scenes of the two lovers together are few and far between. No, really it's a detective story, and Jeunet uses all his hyper-imaginative skill to hold the audience's interest as Mathilde interviews a colourful cast of eccentrics and walking wounded in the search for the truth behind the last hours of trench Bingo Crepuscule.
This film is a kick in the teeth to all those who objected to Amelie's apparent fluffiness. Although scenes of the Brittany coast and the wacky rustic adventures of Mathilde's extended family are shot through with a wholesome golden glow, these contrast sharply with the mud-soaked drab squalor of the film's war scenes. Jeunet has never pulled any punches in his depiction of violence and the ear-splitting gunshots and gore-laced corpses are as shocking as the rural scenes are pleasant.
The contrast is there for a reason though. Jeunet attempts to describe the fine line between the horror of war and the respite of peace. The First World War left long and deep scars on Europe's soul, and it is too often neglected thanks to the horror of the Second.
Jeunet's post-war France is an unhealthy nation: young men live in fear of the police for their attempts to desert, wartime secrets are guarded jealously by an over-zealous State and the horror to come is eluded to frequently but most obviously in references to Petain, the future Nazi puppet who orders the Army to throw mutilated soldiers into the battlefield. I hope he wasn't namechecked purely to silence the sad critics who suggested Amelie pandered to the Far Right.
We are also shown how ancient 1917-1920 really is. Despite the trains and bicycles and telephones, it's a France where syphilis is still rife, and victims tended by penguin-suited nuns. You can ride a Harley Davison but polio can still cripple you. And if you transgress, you get guillotined. The guillotine sequence is brutal, to the point and shot in the style of contemporary newsreel footage (it might even be genuine footage for all I can tell) so you can't escape the truth: history is nasty, and we're not that far from it. The overgrown battlefield is an obvious image, but no less striking for it.
The performances are superb. Tautou proves she is more than a series of funny faces as she goes to hell and back looking for Maneche. The young man playing her lover has a rubbish part by any standards (being either shellshocked or lovestruck in all his scenes) but he does manage to convey the depth of their relationship in limited screentime. Dominique Pinon pops up in a Jeunet film once again, this time as Mathilde's uncle and guardian. The rubber-faced comedian has appeared in all of Jeunet's films and although his decline from unlikely leading man to grumpy character actor is a little sad, his solid performance gives an excellent backbone to the film, so that scenes where he and his wife (aunt and uncle to the orphaned Mathilde) discuss how Mathilde's obsession with the past is getting them down are touching, rather than coming across as padding.
To indulge Jeunet's nasty worldview, we also have a subplot in which the girlfriend of another war victim tracks down the war criminals who brought about her own lover's death. This is massively entertaining and inventive, but also extremely violent.
If I had a criticism of the film, it would be the occasionally clumsy attempts to tell two stories. There is a horrendous and true conspiracy behind the decision to throw wounded soldiers over the trenches, but Mathilde uncovers it pretty much by accident, and has no real interest in it. She only wants to find her fiance, and everything else is just a bit of a 'wasn't it a shambles' soapbox which was handled better by the gallows humour of Blackadder Goes Forth.
There is a slight recognition of this, when Mathilde and Tina Lombardi meet. Lombardi mentions that Mathilde would have acted in the same way. The irony being that Mathilde pursues a political path to solve a personal mystery, while Tina undertakes a personal vendetta to avenge a political crime. Mathilde is ultimately the one sanctioned by both the fact that she isn't sentenced to death, as well as by a letter from Tina's lover (the irony of which is a bit naff and unwelcome, to be honest).
Even then, though, Jeunet has a nasty spanner to throw in the works. A convicted murderer remarks how she will die like Joan of Arc. Of course, this is massively symbolic for a French film anyway, but apart from the historic link 'La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc' is rightly revered in French film lore and was showcased in Godard's 'Vivre Sa Vie'. Just a few years ago, former French Hollywood darling Luc Besson seemingly had his last hurrah with the Mila Jovovich vehicle 'Jeanne d'Arc' and now his undisputed successor steals the crown with a cheeky grin. Classy.
People will dislike this film. It's long, it has subtitles, and the conclusion is far from neat. But those people are ignorant. Other people will carp at the blatant low budget of the trench scenes, but they need to open their mind to the power of suggestion - for what is cinema if not illusion?
And there will be a few critics moaning about the post-feminist readings of Mathilde's rape fantasies and the Heritage vibe of the Brittany scenes (and rest assured, the film frequently plays like Jean de Florette with telephones), not to mention the blatant plot-device of the omnipresent telephone cable.
They're all nitpickers, to greater or lesser extents. If your neighbour is too ignorant or (which is more likely) too xenophobic to tolerate a subtitled film, that's no excuse for YOU to miss the film of the year so far.
Oh yes, and it's rated 15 for oodles of sex and violence! So get your sneaking shoes on to see it, kids (censorship is evil)!
Advantages: Funny, beautiful and quite emotional Disadvantages: Slightly too complex, quite long
A Very Long Engagement (or Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles to give it its proper title) is the fifth film by the influential French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, after Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children, Alien: Resurrection and 2001's Amélie. It stars Audrey Tautou, who of course teamed up with Jeunet to create the brilliant Amélie, which is one of my favourite films ever, so I had high expectations of this. It is based on the novel by Sebastian ... ...set in France, made by a French director, with French actors and in the French language, and based on a French book. But there's no pleasing some people.
The story tells of childhood sweethearts Mathilde (Audrey Tautou) and Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), who fall in love and get engaged. But when Manech joins the army to fight in the First World War, Mathilde is left fearful that he will never return. When she hears that Manech is one of five soldiers ...
l-m-n-o-p 01.10.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of A Very Long Engagement (DVD)
Advantages: Excellent production, direction, performances Disadvantages: Harrowing scenes in the trenches
...of five soldiers sent to a trench named Bingo Crépuscule (crépuscule meaning twilight) in No Man's Land, where death was almost certain; their fate was the result of having injured themselves, either accidentally or deliberately in an attempt to avoid combat.
'A Very Long Engagement', based on the novel by Sébastien Japrisot, is directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet of the much-loved film 'Amélie', whose star of course was also Audrey Tatou. 'A Very Long ... ...is a huge undertaking filled with grim, grey episodes of fighting in the trenches of World War I, visits to the bustling 1920s city of Paris and more peaceful scenes of Mathilde's life in the cottage where she was brought up by her aunt and uncle after being orphaned at a very early age.
Tautou gives a superb performance as the young woman who is convinced that she can discover the fate of the man she loves so dearly. Still limping following a childhood ...
denella 01.02.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of A Very Long Engagement (DVD)
Advantages: A marvellous recreation of an idealised world, fantastic performances and a huge heart Disadvantages: None
...French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has a unique way of looking at the world and has previously impressed with such thematically and literally dark sepia-toned films as “Delicatessen” and “The City of Lost Children”. He also introduced the world to the romantic whimsy of “Amélie”, starring the elfin Audrey Tautou. In “A Very Long Engagement” he marries dark and light to create a tale of love against the odds. Taking a novel by French author Sebastian ... ...and redemption. He also has a strong vein of humour running through the film (just watch the running gag about the postman who likes to make an entrance). That being said, he doesn’t disregard the horrors of war, with many visceral scenes showing just that. He plays with a non-linear narrative that incorporates flashbacks and flash-forwards, so we discover things at the same time as Mathilde. Of course he indulges himself in plenty of flights of ...
afy9mab 21.03.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of A Very Long Engagement (DVD)
Advantages: Beautifully shot and frequently charming. Disadvantages: Lacks the spark that many will expect, with a story that can get tedious.
...perfect is by no means a task to be envied, anything that follows inevitably being left wide open to scrutiny and the most judgemental of examinations. So, as I approach the perilous prospect of the following paragraphs, I do find it necessary to confirm that yes, I am without a shadow of a doubt directly comparing A Very Long Engagement (2004) to director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's outstanding Amelie (2001). Unfair as it may seem, I do have good reason: ... ...Right?
The story concerns a young woman (Mathilde, played by the lovely Audrey Tautou) and her constant struggle to come to terms with and accept the absence of her fiancée Manech (Gaspard Ulliel) after his supposed death at the hands of The Great War. Empowered by her spiritual connection with Manech, Mathilde searches far and wide refusing to accept that he has perished; all the while attempting to unravel the mystery surrounding the events that ...
onaploppable 13.08.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of A Very Long Engagement (DVD)
Advantages: Funny, emotional, beautiful. Disadvantages: Little bit gory!
...and tells the story of a girl (who cripples by polio since the age of 3) limps around on her way to find her fiancé.
He has been court-martialled and him and his comrades have been sent out to nomads land to be killed in the crossfire so they are all left there to do. But do they?...
The film tells of the story to try and find her fiancé after a tip-off from a relative that he may still be alive.
Audrey Tatou plays the part convincingly as an ...
Broadster1984 09.06.2006 (04.07.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of A Very Long Engagement (DVD)
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Advantages: Dark humour combined with incredibly passionate love story Disadvantages: Subtitling is poor at conveying the French meaning
I must say that I only originally purchased the DVD because of Marion Cotillard's performance in A VeryLongEngagement with Audrey Tautou, in that she was amazing and her character had a parrallel level of undiluted passion to the one she portray in Love Me If you Dare. However, her acting as Polish cream puff Sophie Kowalsky is flawless. All praise cannot go solely to Miss Cotillard though, her co-start Guillaume Canet gives a stunning performs as a boy who loses his mother and on the whole a father to game that tears his life apart.
The thing about the film is, though both are mad for one another, the game separates them with a void that neither knows how to fill. When one says something the other is unaware whether it's a game or real emotion. To them the game is raw and neither surrenders their pride long enough to realise ...
The Great War rages and a young woman waits for her fiance to return. When she receives the news that he is dead she chooses not to believe it and sets off to find out what has happened to him.
Running Time
2 hours 14 minutes
Video Category
World Cinema Feature Film
Country Of Origin
France
Release details
DVD Region
DVD
Studio(s)
WARNER HOME VIDEO; CINRAM LOGISTICS
Release date
02/01/2006, 13/06/2005
No of Discs
1, 2
Catalogue No
D 099096, D 038972
Barcode
7321900990967, 7321900389723
Languages
Main Language
French
Subtitle Language
English
Technical information
Aspect Ratio
2.40 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Dubbing Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround French
Special Features
Commentary, Documentaries, Trailers
Professional reviews
Review
Great artistry on a grand scale (Financial Times, )
An arresting achievement. Spectacular (Independent On Sunday, )
A belter of a movie (The Sun, )
Audrey Tautou is at her captivating best (The Times, )
DVD Description
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.
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