A Very Long Engagement Reviewed

By Ron Wilkinson Nov 8, 2004, 0:46 GMT

With A Very Long Engagement Audrey Tautou brings life to the death of the trenches in this poignant love story set against the backdrop of World War I.  Playing Mathilde, the adopted daughter of working class relatives in rural France, she is betrothed to Manech (Gaspard Ulliel).  Manech is taken off to war by the French government and is sentenced to a most unusual death for crimes real and imagined.  As fate often dictates in the horrific happenstance of war, his death is never confirmed and Mathilde starts on the search of lifetime to uncover the truth.

It is no overstatement to say that Tautou has taken the screen by storm in the last ten years.  Her films “Amelie,” and “Dirty Pretty Things,” have waged World War III on the international cinema, and this latest installment could be the blockbuster that brings down the house.  She combines the innocence and other-worldliness of Amelie with the stubborn perseverance of Severn in an epic backed by the best production and direction you will see today.

“Engagement” brings a traditional approach and doesn’t seek to jolt the audience out of their seats (except perhaps in the war scenes in the first third of the movie).  The war scenes are excellent footage recreating the unthinkable horror of the trench warfare of WW I.  The trenches themselves are completely real, as are the custom dug shell craters and the barren “No-man’s Land” of the Somme battlefield.  Neither time nor money were spared by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and set designer Aline Bonetto in setting up the Loraine battlefield trench known as Bingo Crepuscule.  The muddy hell of the trenches was hand-sculpted with loving care from archival documents to match the original to a tee.

Director Jeunet’s production team included a tight knit assemblage of his past team mates.  Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel made “Amelie” with Jeunet as well as his previous short films.  Set designer Aline Bonetto has worked with Jeunet since “Delicatessen” and costume designer Madeline Fontaine first met the director on the set of “The City of Lost Children.”  Make-up artist Nathalie Tissier, editor Herve’ Schneid, special effects company Les Versaillais and visual effects company Duboi rounded out the key production team members for the film.

As the story goes, on the evening of the 2004 Oscars ceremony director Jeunet asked Amelie if she would like to make another movie with him.  She replied she would, if it employed the same crew as in “Amelie.”  Having read Japrisot’s novel ten years earlier and never having forgotten the haunting story of Mathilde, a film was born then and there.  Tautou’s ability to bring the incredible simplicity, loyalty and perseverance of true love to the screen is the key to making the movie work.  Mathilde is the natural evolution of both Amelie and Severn.  The movie is all about her inability to accept the despair of war, when others about her have.  The albatross and the lighthouse are recurring symbols of the light and perseverance in Mathilde’s soul as she braves the storms of mechanized war.

The beauty of the French countryside contrasts with the death of the mud holes

At a run time of two hours and 14 minutes the movie has plenty of time to develop a great cast of distinctive characters.  The spectrum runs the gamut from the vicious to the cowardly and from the saintly to the damned.  This magnificently skilled expose of human instincts brought forth by the crushing stress of warfare in the trenches was doubtlessly the beauty that catalyzed Jeunet’s love of the Japrisot novel.  No movie has ever paraded such a fascinating collection of personalities across the screen.

Amongst these characters the reaction to the brutality of war varies from the complete withdrawal into insanity to the wholesale adoption of murder as a way of life.  Some of the characters lose their humanity to the war, while others, inexplicably, are able to rise above the flames.  As Mathilde’s love rises from the stench of death in the bloody quagmire of the trenches, she embodies the redemption of mankind from the violation of God’s primary commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.”

No review of this movie would be complete without an affirmation of the excellent work of cinematographer Delbonnel.  The relative lack of special effects in the film strengthens the impact of the acting and will come as a relief to many.  Delbonnel’s ability to film the beauty of the French countryside and the death of the mud holes that the condemned soldiers called home with equal passion and accuracy is testimony to an old-world work ethic that is rapidly fading into the past.

Mathilde starts on the search of lifetime to uncover the truth

Jeunet favorites from past films include Dominique Pinon playing Sylvain, Mathilde’s uncle and guardian, Ticky Holgado playing Germain Pire, a private detenctive hired by Mathilde to shed light on the fate of her betrothed lover, and Jean-Claude Dreyfus playing Commandant Lavrouye, a victim of the corruption of war and absolute authority who meets his end at the hands of the ghost of victims past.  The fine performances coached from these past collaborators are combined with new performances; the lead going to Gaspard Ulliel playing the young and innocent Manech, Mathilde’s betrothed.  Jeunet saw Ulliel in Michel Blanc’s film “Summer Things” and immediately made the match with Tautou’s innocent and loving nature.  They make a perfect couple and perfect foils for madness of their environment; two albatross’ making their way through the storm.

In the spirit of the madness of war, the men in the trenches have given their home a name, Bingo Crépuscule, a place of twilight where hope is rapidly fading.  The albatross is a recurring theme of the movie, as is Mathilde’s repeated mantra, “ashes to ashes,” and the lighthouse by the sea.  The message is although all human form eventually turns to dust, the light of love finds a way to persevere.  Although light soon fades from whatever victory may emerge from war, the light of loves lives on forever.