Be warned, this is not a soppy cry-fest your granny would love. It is often nightmarishly dark, and the grittiness of the war scenes are as powerful and horrifying as those in Saving Private Ryan.
But unlike many war movies, the soldiers are not nameless cannon fodder.
We are given enough information of each of the characters to make us care for them before the camera switches from their happy lives at home to the horrors of war.
Because we care, the true human loss and brutality of their situation is all the more powerful.
Like Amelie, A Very Long Engagement has a very dreamlike and surreal quality to it. But the subject matter couldn't be more different.
This is a film about loss and pain, and the true cost of war. But its also a movie about life, love, hope and the human heart's often painful obstinacy to keep faith when all hope seems lost.
