From the director and star of Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Audrey Tautou) comes a very different love story.
Based on the acclaimed novel by Sebastien Japrisot, A Very Long Engagement is set in France near the end of World War I: in the deadly trenches of the Somme; in the gilded Parisian halls of power; and in the modest home of an indomitable provincial girl.
It tells the story of a young woman's relentless, moving and sometimes comic search for her fiance who has disappeared. He is one of five French soldiers believed to have been court-martialled 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.
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Reviews
– Customer review on 22/03/2006
A Very Long Engagement reunites the star and director of the lovely Amelie. There are touches of magical realism but the story is a much darker one, set during WWII about a strange young woman who refuses to believe that the love of her life is dead. Complex and multilayered, but rich and compelling.
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and definately recommend it to people. It's brilliantly woven...much like the movie Amelie, and I think it might even be by the same director. Audrey Tatou definately play a similar character that believes in the impossible up to the very end.
I enjoyed this. It moved a bit slowly in places, and I'm intrigued that Audrey Tautou's films tend to all follow the same quirky narrative format... But it was enjoyable. With the exception of her last flick with Mr. Hanks, she seems to have been a bit type cast into the daisy-like waif who simpers and could either turn the world in on herself or blow it wide open--you never know. The story was a bit hard to follow, which probably wasn't helped by the language barrier and translation. As usual, I noticed several places where the subtitle did not match what was said at all, which shaded things a bit differently. It was a pretty film though, with interesting cinematography. The war scenes were different than you tend to see in American films. They were gross in this, but the drama was around the reaction of the characters experiencing whatever gross thing more than the gross things itself. Hollywood tends to focus on the yuck as its own character. Interesting story, though. I loved her vague OCDness
Abit biased in my review as Jean-Pierre Jeunet is my favourite director. The story is quaint and mushy but with JPJs direction, cinematography along with costume designs, fabulous CGI work and great actors, old and new, they make this film a delight to experience. I also have a soft spot for war movies that involve the greater community and not just the soldiers battle so A Very Long Engagement is tops in my book. One cannot help but see parts of 'Amelie' in this for obvious reasons, and other JPJ films, (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children) but there is of course a strong separation from them and that this film definitely stands alone. A definite for love story and perhaps mystery movie buffs too as the film encompasses these aspects. This is in my top ten favourite films.
World War 2 drama, with a very substantial, well produced quality to it. It has a wonderful, unconventional quality as well, as the story is centered around the love of two sweethearts, a girl crippled by polio, and a slow witted boy. When the boy is sent to fight, the girl holds true and waits, but when he disappears and is presumed dead, she will give everything she has to find him. I can't recommend this film highly enough.
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– Customer review on 11/12/2006
