The Fabulous Destiny of...Mathilde?
A Very Long Engagement, starring Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Ticky Holgado, Marion Cotillard, Dominique Pinon, and Chantal Neuwirth
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
(In French with English subtitles)
The first half or so of A Very Long Engagement might as well be titled the Further Adventures of Amélie, so closely does it hew to the style and plot of that earlier international hit, which also teamed director Jean-Pierre Jeunet with Audrey Tautou. Like Amélie, Engagement has at its center a quirky, slightly frail heroine who’s incurably romantic and prone to superstitious beliefs. Engagement also shares with its predecessor the device of introducing each character with a rapid summation of their personal history and quirks in voice-over. And among the actors, I counted at least four from the earlier film in Engagement.
Even fans of the earlier film, however, among whom I count myself, will likely not be pleased at how similar Engagement is to Amélie. After all, the movie isn’t titled the Further Adventures of Amélie, and that’s probably not what most of us were expecting to see. Instead, the likely hope was that Jeunet would apply his unique visual style to tell an entirely new story, and that Tautou might reveal her ability to play something other than a gamine romantic with her head in the clouds.
In the case of this film, both Jeunet and Tautou are given ample material with which to fashion something original. Engagement is based on a recent French bestseller of the same name about Mathilde, a young soldier’s fiancée during World War I who believes against all odds that her beloved Manech is still alive. In the story, Manech, who’s played in the film by the very young-looking Gaspard Ulliel, is sentenced along with four other soldiers to be court-martialed for injuring himself in an attempt to get discharged. The rest of his story is told via flashback in bits and pieces as Mathilde tracks down every possible clue in hopes of finding him.
Although the story’s initial battle scenes are rendered with an impressive realism reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan, the film doesn’t really start to come into its own until it allows characters other than Tautou to take over the screen and tell their stories. Most notable among these other characters is Jodie Foster in an unbilled cameo as the wife of one of the officers who witnessed Manech’s final days. Speaking in perfect French, Foster gives an incredibly heartfelt and realistic performance that contrasts sharply with the often whimsical or exaggerated dispositions of the film’s primary characters. Marion Cotillard does the same in a subsequent scene as the vengeful lover of one of Manech’s fellow soldiers, helping the film to build to its inevitable conclusion.
It's only when Jeunet abandons the fanciful tone of Amélie, however, that his film is able to achieve a deeper level of resonance. For it’s then that his bravura storytelling skills are used most effectively to illustrate the film’s themes of the power of love and the idiocy of war.
Stars: **1/2
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
(In French with English subtitles)
The first half or so of A Very Long Engagement might as well be titled the Further Adventures of Amélie, so closely does it hew to the style and plot of that earlier international hit, which also teamed director Jean-Pierre Jeunet with Audrey Tautou. Like Amélie, Engagement has at its center a quirky, slightly frail heroine who’s incurably romantic and prone to superstitious beliefs. Engagement also shares with its predecessor the device of introducing each character with a rapid summation of their personal history and quirks in voice-over. And among the actors, I counted at least four from the earlier film in Engagement.
Even fans of the earlier film, however, among whom I count myself, will likely not be pleased at how similar Engagement is to Amélie. After all, the movie isn’t titled the Further Adventures of Amélie, and that’s probably not what most of us were expecting to see. Instead, the likely hope was that Jeunet would apply his unique visual style to tell an entirely new story, and that Tautou might reveal her ability to play something other than a gamine romantic with her head in the clouds.
In the case of this film, both Jeunet and Tautou are given ample material with which to fashion something original. Engagement is based on a recent French bestseller of the same name about Mathilde, a young soldier’s fiancée during World War I who believes against all odds that her beloved Manech is still alive. In the story, Manech, who’s played in the film by the very young-looking Gaspard Ulliel, is sentenced along with four other soldiers to be court-martialed for injuring himself in an attempt to get discharged. The rest of his story is told via flashback in bits and pieces as Mathilde tracks down every possible clue in hopes of finding him.
Although the story’s initial battle scenes are rendered with an impressive realism reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan, the film doesn’t really start to come into its own until it allows characters other than Tautou to take over the screen and tell their stories. Most notable among these other characters is Jodie Foster in an unbilled cameo as the wife of one of the officers who witnessed Manech’s final days. Speaking in perfect French, Foster gives an incredibly heartfelt and realistic performance that contrasts sharply with the often whimsical or exaggerated dispositions of the film’s primary characters. Marion Cotillard does the same in a subsequent scene as the vengeful lover of one of Manech’s fellow soldiers, helping the film to build to its inevitable conclusion.
It's only when Jeunet abandons the fanciful tone of Amélie, however, that his film is able to achieve a deeper level of resonance. For it’s then that his bravura storytelling skills are used most effectively to illustrate the film’s themes of the power of love and the idiocy of war.
Stars: **1/2
posted by Captain Nemo at 9:19 PM
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