A Very Long Engagement | | Cast : | Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel | | Director : | Jean-Pierre Jeunet | | Studio : | Warner Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | , 2004 | | DVD Released Date : | July 12, 2005 | | Language : | French (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 10, 2005 | | Summary | It's a "Film" , not a "Movie" | Content
 | Once again, this director has proven his abilities. Pardon me for taking the technical side of things, but I like good photography, and clear examples of really extraordinary technical effort.
Like "Amelie" the photography is very artful, and visually pleasing. Those of you who've seen "Amelie" are familiar with that picture's recurring use of red and green. This one is in golden yellow at times and olive drab with rain in the trenches. You will also be familiar with the thought "bubbles" and other tie in techniques to the plot, and the humorous smatterings throughout that keep it from being an overly depressing story.
The story is, as others have said, very stark, sometimes shocking, and that is due to dipicting a rediculous war that was unfortunate enough to have happened during a technological turn-around. Amelie is a "feel good" film, this is a thought provoking one.
I was impressed by the techniques used to carry the story along without putting them out front in a narrative way - you can follow this very easily. Despite potential difficulty, I'm glad that this movie wasn't overdubbed in English. I don't speak a word of French, but it would be entirely wrong to overdub this the way they did with "Crouching Tiger."
The fifth star was lost to a couple of unrealistic scenarios - but maybe I'm being overly critical; perhaps some unreal moments were intentional. But otherwise the movie seems to be historically accurate, and it's fully engrossing. The detail to costuming and everything else is extraordinary. Good ending too.
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| Rating | | | Date | August 07, 2005 | | Summary | Epic in scope, brilliant in parts, but overlong and overcrowded | Content
| This film tells the story of a woman, Mathilde, searching for her fiance, Manech. They are separated when the French army conscripts Manech to the trenches in World War I. Very early on we see Manech courtmartialed for self-mutilation, deliberately allowing himself to be shot in the hand so that he'd be discharged from the army. We also learn that he is a gentle, thoughtful, and sheltered soul who was unready for anything like the horrors of trench warfare, and basically cracks under the strain. Instead of a nice, clean firing squad, he and 4 others accused of the same crime are forced over the top, weaponless, into no-man's land to either be killed by German snipers or to die of exposure.
Mathilde is informed that Manech is dead, but she knows in her heart that he is not. She plays games with herself - "If the reflection from his watch hits the crucifix on the wall, I know Manech is alive." She hires a private detective to help with her search. She takes out ads in the paper asking for information. She finds a prostitute who was in love with another of the court-martialled men and who is wreaking revenge on those that carried out the sentence. These events allow the film to sweep from atop a lighthouse in Brittany to the island of Corsica, often with breathtaking scenery and seamless marriage of CGI and live action. It also allows the introduction of a huge cast and many memorable characters. Two are worth mentioning - the postman who delights in making skid marks with his bicycle in the gravel driveway of Mathilde's house, and the adulterous wife of another of the condemned men, played anachronistically by a well-known American actress (her accent is disguised under the guise of her character's Polish ethnicity, but it sounded pretty good to me anyway). The other triumph of the film is the evocation of the front in WWI - the soldiers living in the mud and water, the long spells of boredom punctuated by sheer terror, the mutinousness of the soldiers (on all sides) as the war dragged into its 4th year, etc.
The film is in French, of course. Many have complained that the subtitles are hard to keep up with. They are not - they are plain, easy to read, and accurate, if terse (however, my French is rusty, made more inadequate by the fact that the Parisian accent is very different from the Quebecoise accent I learned in school). I'm sure that if I was fluent in French I'd pick up a lot more nuance from the roles. As it was, I found the sheer number of characters to be somewhat confusing and the subtitiled dialogue was not interesting enough to really draw me in. The failing of the film is that it's just a little too long (at 2:15) with too many little side-plot diversions.
The DVD is quite a nice package, and includes a number of nifty extras. There is a long and informative making-of feature that is quite raw in its production value (not the highly-polished and edited as Peter Jackson or George Lucas versions), but is all the more charming for it. There are cut scenes as well, a commentary, and so on. Certainly this 2-disc set is a worthy offering, and perhaps I'll enjoy the movie more on second or third viewings, once I am able to concentrate more on the scenery and acting, and not so distracted by the plot twists and multitudinous characters. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 07, 2005 | | Summary | Wonderful | Content
| I highly recommend this film to anyone who enjoys a good romance. Throughout the film the characters are interwoven with each other to create a funny, sad, hopeful, depressing mystery as to what really happened on the battlefield. While some prefer films to be dubbed I always try to get the movie in it's original language with subtitles because you get a better feel for the way the lines are supposed to be said. Overall, Mathilde's journey to find her lost love and in essence her self, is one in which romantics or even those who enjoy historical movies will enjoy. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 03, 2005 | | Summary | Couldn't enjoy because you have to read the lines... | Content
| Beautiful Paris and the French country side in the 1920's, this would be a good movie to watch except that you can't watch it because you have to read the lines. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 02, 2005 | | Summary | an "epic" foreign film... | Content
| my review is short and sweet-unlike the movie. Don't get me wrong, I thought the movie was fantastic in many ways, and I'd recommend it to any-1)foreign film, 2)indie film, or 3)war film buff. BUT, that being said, a few points to mention:
1-if you want to watch specifically based on your love of the film Amelie-I think you'll be disappointed. It's a entirely different premise than that film.
2-this film is definately NOT for those under at least 16-it has several fairly graphic sex scenes and many hard to watch, violent war scenes. Depending on your teens maturity level, it could be watched, but I'd suggest you pre watch it yourself to decide if it would be suitable for your teen.
3-watch this film when you have ample time and a quiet house. As mentioned previously, the film is long, and you'll need all your attention to keep up with the subtitles.
The film is tragic one moment, hilarious the next, visually stunning, and Audrey Tantou is a treat as always-you'll see many old favorites from Amelie and Delicatessen, and well as Jodie Foster speaking fluent French-which is worth the price of admission by itself:) It's quirky and hauntingly beautiful-well worth watching.
4 stars! |
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