A Very Long Engagement | Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel

A Very Long Engagement | Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel | absolutely first rate depiction of war and young love

DVDs:

A Very Long Engage...

	A Very Long Engagement Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel Warner Home Video, 2005 average customer review:based on 112 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The film is set in France near the end of World War I in the deadly trenches of the Somme, in the gilded Parisien halls of power, and in the modest home of an indomitable provincial girl. It tells the story of this young woman's relentless, moving and sometimes comic search for her fiancC)e, who has disappeared. He is one of five French soldiers believed to have been court-martialed under mysterious circumstances and pushed out of an allied trench into an almost-certain death in no-man's land. What follows is an investigation into the arbitrary nature of secrecy, the absurdity of war, and the enduring passion, intuition and tenacity of the human heart.

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary
Deleted Scenes:With Director audio commentary
Documentaries:Paris in the 20'sThe Zepplin Explosion
Featurette:The Making of A Very Long Engagement
Theatrical Trailer

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Excellent

With the possible exception of America's Claire Danes, the French actress Audrey Tautou is probably the most interesting actress alive to simply watch onscreen. It's not that Danes and Tautou are not beautiful, they are. But they are not gorgeous screen sirens; they have an accessibility to them that makes ordinary men feel that they could some day have a girl like that fall in love with them. This is because they radiate, they simple glow with presence. Tautou, who first came to American filmgoers' attention with the smash hit comedy Amélie, is also the lead star of A Very Long Engagement, the new film by the director of that earlier film, Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Tautou not only engages with her ability to simply radiate, but because she can do more acting simply with her face than most actresses can do with their whole bodies, and in this film she shows it, playing a World War One era polio victim in search of her lover who is presumed dead.
The film is gorgeously shot, in unrealistic tones- ranging from golden to sepia to gray, in the sense of the trench warfare....This is a great film, with scenes of battle carnage every bit the equal of the ridiculously overlauded Saving Private Ryan, but it also has believable and identifiable characters, moments of great humor and depth, and a true actress for the ages in Tautou. Whether she is scheming, playing the tuba, consoling herself, or playing a little mind game to bargain for the safe return of her lover (which she does several times in the film), Tautou dominates the screen like few actors can....
A Very Long Engagement, adapted from a French novel by Sebastian Japrisot, is a truly terrific film, and even though it really isn't a strict war film, I would rank it right up there, just behind the best war films ever made- the aforementioned Paths Of Glory, A Thin Red Line by Terrence Malick, 1997's Regeneration, from the U.K., and Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola. Audrey Tautou is a star of the highest order, whose comparisons to that other filmic Audrey- Hepburn, are apt.

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absolutely first rate depiction of war and young love

This film has entered the pantheon of films that I can see over and over and yet understand more on each viewing - it is so subtle and intricate, as the mystery unravels, that there are always additional details to find and savor. That makes this one of the best films I have ever seen on many levels.

First, you have the mystery and horror of the Great War. I live in France, and every town has a monument full of names on it for those who died in it. This film will make you feel what it cost, in very human terms, both in those lost and in the psychological destruction of the survivors. While I have read about what it was like, this film is a wonderfully fresh view of it.

Second, there is a story of pure young love, which envelopes the life of a spectacularly quirky beauty. This is perfection, so moving that I feel tears well up every time I see it. With Mathilde and her tuba by the shore, or the hand of the sleeping Maneche on her breast, you feel what it is like for all of us the first time. The poetry is undeniable, beyond melodrama, in acting that is uniformly brilliant.

Third, you have the mystery: Mathilde feels Maneche is still alive, and barely wavers in her search to find him or to discover what happened, a faith that survives beyond her lamentation at his grave. This enters her into a unique adventure, bringing her into contact with a society in change.

Fourth, you view a wider tableau of people within the society. In this respect, the film is as good as a Balzac novel, portraying the tensions and aspirations of people embedded in their time, which in my opinion is the best way to understand the power and beauty of history. France is portrayed here in the early 1920s, a very beautiful country with underdeveloped culture and economy, in astonishingly vivid and accurate detail - you see the charm and poverty of the old Europe that is barely an echo today. It is here that you get cameos by Jodie Foster, one of the best roles I have seen of this truly fine actress, and many others (all French, I think) whome I did not know. Foster is one of the many people that Mathilde seeks out in her search, gaining crucial information yet also helping a fellow traveller in pain.

Fifth, there is a psychological depth in the choices of all the characters. Mathilde becomes a wise and tenacious adult, marked by her pain and yet only dimly aware of her potential. She very much reminded me of my wife. She chooses life, while others take more destructive paths or show themselves unable to grow beyond the unimaginable circumstances they survived unwhole. Here, you see Mathilde's doppelganger, a prostitute bent on savage revenge. But there are so many others, each of whom adds a crucial piece to the puzzle in an unfolding story of intricate complexity.

Warmly recommended.

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Heartfelt, tender, gorgeous movie

What a beautiful movie! I decided to own this it certainly bears repeated viewing! It is gorgeous cinematically and has that quirky "Amelie" style. The back-drop of the First World War is vividly evoked and Audrey Tautou is particularly enchanting. A MUST SEE!

One of the best pictures ever made but has been overlooked.

The how-it-was-filmed section is a wonderful lesson film making. The slop of the trenches, desperation and violence makes this feel real. We should all know a woman like this woman of substance. Watch for Jodie Foster as the wife who has to make a baby to get her husband home. She happened to be in France at the time.

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I liked it, but not THAT much...

I'm usually a sap for good love stories, but this one didn't have what I am normally into. Perhaps it was the somewhat foreign nature of the film that did not appeal to me or perhaps the story line felt a little choppy at times but I could not connect to the story the way I wanted to. I tried, but the movie was just shy of 4 stars.

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