A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles)
by Liam McNeilis, icNorthWest
A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles) (15, 134 mins) Starring: Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Jean-Pierre Becker, Dominique Bettenfeld Directed by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
YES this film is French, and yes it has subtitles and unfortunately that may be enough to make many an audience member turn off, but that would be a huge mistake.
This film is stunningly unmissable.
A Very Long Engagement is at it's heart a romance, but it's not in the schmaltzy 'chick flick' sense of the word. This is one movie the men in the audience will not snooze through.
From the horrific ordeals of life in the trenches of WWI to the beautiful spectacle of the French countryside this is a film about extremes that will hold you spellbound.
The director and star of "Amelie", Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Audrey Tautou, are once again reunited for this very different love story.
Based on the acclaimed novel by Sebastien Japrisot, it begins with five desperate men who go to extreme measures to escape the horrors of the trenches in WWI.
Seeing no other way out, they shoot themselves in order to be relieved from the horrendous frontline at the Somme (told you it wasn't a chick flick).
But a military court-martial dishes out an inhumane punishment. The five are sent into no-man's land, doomed to be cut down in the crossfire and left to die. Or do they?
Mathilde, (Audrey Tatou), the fiancée of one of the men, receives information that her love may still be alive. So she embarks in a painful, long and often frustrating ordeal to find out the truth.
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.
