Review

Review Date: 26-December-04
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Jubilation!

A Very Long Engagement (2004)

Those of you who caught the trailer for "A Very Long Engagement" are advised to forget it when deciding whether to see this film. The preview suggested a candy-coated and sappy excuse for parading the limpid pools of Audrey Tatou's eyes, but from the first second of the opening credits it's apparent that the movie is oh, so much more. Mystery, love story, war drama, quirky comedy: "A Very Long Engagement" is all of these things, as well as a simple tale of a remarkable woman. Taking a major step forward from his international hit, "Amélie," director Jean-Pierre Jeunet delivers a brilliant, intricate, and engrossing study of the best and worst that humanity has to offer.

Based on Sébastien Japrisot's novel (which I read but barely remembered), "A Very Long Engagement" takes the form of a detective story whose unlikely Holmes is a Gallic gal named Mathilde (Tatou). It's 1920, three years after her childhood friend and teenage lover Manech was reported dishonorably dead in World War I. Though an orphan and early victim of polio, Mathilde has a will of iron that allows her to persevere on the slightest hope and faintest intuition that her fiancé could not have perished without her knowing it. When she receives a letter from a veteran who knew Manech, she decides to follow all leads and discover what really happened to him and four other soldiers at a fateful spot called Bingo Crépuscule. Her quest soon draws in her guardian, her loving aunt and uncle (Chantal Neuwirth, Dominique Pinon), a private investigator, and a host of memorable characters who, like Mathilde, wish to salvage something from the horrors of war.

As every scene moves the heroine closer to a momentous discovery, every frame attests to the grandeur of Jeunet's vision. The script (which he penned with Guillaume Laurant) takes the viewer from the muddiest, bloodiest trenches of the front to the most gorgeous vistas of Brittany and Corsica, through acts of cruelty and despair to moments of camaraderie and triumph. The music, locations, and cinematography merge into a panorama of savagery and beauty in which the actors seem both epic and entirely real. Mathilde shines as brightly as the lighthouse of her hallowed courtship, but other characters will tickle you or break your heart: the magnanimous cook who granted Manech's last request (Albert Dupontel); the bereaved prostitute who drowns her sorrow in vengeance (Marion Cotillard); the widow who lost her husband to the war even before his death (Jodie Foster); and above all, the innocent Manech himself (Gaspard Ulliel, with a face that could launch a thousand desperate searches).

"A Very Long Engagement" is utterly absorbing from first to last. It deals with terrible things without giving in to sorrow and speaks of love and hope without wallowing in sentiment. Jeunet has crafted a truly timeless tale; my own wish is that I don't need to wait as long as Mathilde before seeing it again.

Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.