August 9 2005
A Very Long Engagement
A World War I movie isn’t what I expected from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, director of such fanciful larks as Amélie and The City of Lost Children. Amélie star Audrey Tautou is back, as well as some other Jeunet cast regulars. His trademark rhythms and visual puzzles are also in effect, recalling some of the best hooks from previous films. Where Jeunet tweaks his formula is in trying to marry the magical with the brutal. Where Delicatessen only teased the audience with cannibalistic landlords that never caught their prey and suicidal tenants with malfunctioning Rube Goldberg-style plans, A Very Long Engagement delivers fully on the bloody horrors of war. (Sure, Jeunet’s contribution to the Alien franchise didn’t skimp on the gore, but monster-inflicted wounds don’t cut quite like mano a mano.) It’s a jarring juxtaposition to go from the grey, body-strewn battlefield to the sunny, fairy tale farmhouse where our heroine plots a capricious investigation. Tautou plays Mathilde, the fiancée of a young soldier named Manech. He is among a group of desperate men who wound themselves in the hope of being sent home. Instead of reprieves, they end up court-martialled and left to die in no man’s land. Mathilde and her betrothed share a cinematic psychic lovers’ bond, and her heart says he is not dead despite reports to the contrary. She embarks upon a complicated mission to find out what happened in the barracks leading up to Manech’s disappearance. As is typical in Jeunet’s French whimsies, little details and events take on huge importance and drama. Where these moments became the memorable climaxes in past stories, here they seem trivial when paired with the memory of a real war where real lives were lost. A running joke of Mathilde’s aunt declaring “doggie fart, warms my heart” would be truly hilarious in a movie where people weren’t mourning the loss of fathers and sons. Still, Jeunet is a master of visuals and unusual storytelling, so even these weaknesses don’t prevent Engagement from being a worthwhile watch. I just hope he’ll return to more escapist form; the real world is scary enough.
