Hey folks, Harry here with Capone jabbing about Jeunet's A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT. They had a press screening of this film in town, but not at a theater that I wanted to see it at. This is a film to see on the very big screen my heart tells me. Unfortunately, I fear it will just play Art House screens - but I hold out hope for better than that. Jeunet's films deserve it.
Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here. No French filmmaker makes films the way Jean-Pierre Jeunet does. I consider myself a connoisseur of French film. That's not a boast, just a fact. If the film is French, try keeping me away. And the thing that always amazes me about nearly every French film I've seen in my life is that my initial reaction to watching one is always: they would never make a film like that in America. Even the more Americanized movies of Luc Besson have an edge or element to them that American filmmaker would never attempt. Would any American studio make a film like LEON and not try to age Natalie Portman's character about 10 years? Most French films are made with little or no money. The emphasis is on sharp, sometimes deviant, scripts and quality actors. Period films are few and far between, but there have been many wonderful bodice rippers from France, most of them staring Juliette Binoche. But Jean-Pierre Jeunet is an entity unto himself. His latest film, A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT, has been received with much controversy simply because he used U.S. funding to get it made. This may not seem like a big deal to us yankees, but trust me, it is. And the results of this extra money make a world of difference to this devastatingly emotional and beautiful film.
Jeunet captured my interest instantaneously about a dozen years ago when I first saw DELICATESSEN. I remember the first time I saw the trailer for that movie, more than I remember my experience seeing the film itself. He followed that up four years later with a film I attempt to revisit at least once a year, THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN. His fluid camerawork and love of all faces bizarre and unusual really began to take shape, and it set up what should have been one of the finest films in the ALIEN quadrilogy, ALIEN: RESURRECTION. He endeared himself to American audiences and the world with the darkly sweet AMELIE, and has found himself back in the capable arms of his leading lady Audrey Tautou for A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT. Since I first took notice of her in AMELIE, I've probably seen Tautou in 8 to 10 films, and have come to realize she is so much more than the mischievous pixie of that film. But none of her other performances prepared me for her tour de force work in ENGAGEMENT. Based on the acclaimed novel by Sebastien Japrisot, ENGAGEMENT is set during and just after World War I. Using techniques we've seen before Jeunet introduces us to five soldiers fighting in the absolute worst conditions of trench warfare. Although the soldiers don't know each other, they all have one thing in common: they have been convicted of self-mutilation (usually a bullet through the hand) to get out of any more fighting. Rather than executing the five, the French military forces the men out of their own trench and into no-man's land between opposing forces--Part above-ground mass grave, part craterous terrain, all certain death. Some of the men die, some live, some come out somewhere inbetween, and our heroine Mathilde (Audrey Tautou), the fiancee of one of the soldiers, Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), spends the entire film trying to find out her lover's fate.
For Jeunet, time means everything and nothing. He jumps back in forth in time, showing us Mathilde and Manech first meeting as children, then jumps ahead to a brutal battle, then jumps ahead to after the war as the mildly crippled Mathilde (she suffered from polio as a child) hobbles across Europe feeling in her heart that Manech is alive. She even makes little bets with herself (and God, presumably) to prove he is alive. While traveling in a train she thinks "If the ticket taker comes to my cabin before the next tunnel, Manech is still alive." In almost every case, she loses her own bets. Despite Mathilde's beauty, she is a women who has suffered greatly in life and she has become stubborn and sometimes downright unlikeable, all in an effort to piece together the series of events that may or may not have led to the death of the only man she's ever loved. Her information-collection campaign is relentless and fascinating to observe. She writes letters, makes phone calls, takes trips, and even occasional steals top secret documents to uncover these events. And Jeunet visually represents each tidbit of information. He doesn't so much give us the RASHOMON approach to showing us the different perspectives on Manech experience, but each new storyteller has a sometimes minutely different perspective. But even the smallest variance in vantage points changes the overall picture of events dramatically.
Along her journey, Mathilde comes across (either personally or through stories being told to her) a host of odd and wonderful characters, played by the likes of Tcheky Karyo, Julie Depardieu, Dominique Pinon, Denis Lavant, and a host of other faces familiar to long-time Jeunet fans. There's even a fairly large supporting performance by Jodie Foster that completely took me by surprise. It's as good a role as any she's done lately as she plays the bundle-of-anxiety companion of one of the soldiers who fills in several chronological holes for Mathilde. Jeunet strikes the perfect balance between ultra-violent war film (we're talking SAVING PRIVATE RYAN-level blood, guts, and body parts) with a love story that is in no way sappy or weak. Mathilde isn't just looking for Manech because she loves him, her quest is an act of desperation. If Manech is dead, who else in the world will love her, she thinks. No one else could possibly understand and care for her the same way. Confirmation of his death would effectively translate into her own death, and Tautou's face says all of this clearly and with loads of despair.
A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT is a series of small stories that add up to one of the most fulfilling stories I've seen on film in quite a while. Sure, Jeunet takes his usual side trips down plot paths that provide character background, but these moments gave me time to relax and contemplate the story so far, what I knew and what remained to be uncovered. And when you couple the great plot with Jeunet's stunning visual style, you get a slice a movie magic that makes it one of the finest French films I've ever seen. There's a sequence in a hospital built in a hanger housing a zeppelin that will absolutely make you forget to breathe. ENGAGEMENT, quite simply, taxes your emotions to such a degree that you feel frayed and worn out when all is said and done. The plot gives you as many opportunities to believe Manech is dead as it gives clues that he's alive. By the time we discover the truth, you're ready to cry no matter what the outcome. The film is an accomplishment for all involved, and a wonder to behold.
Capone
Click Here To Write Capone A Love Letter of Your Own!
