A "Very" Special Film 
By Robert Lachman
"Amelie" director shows how it's done.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet has proved himself over the years as one of France 's most original and most successful film director. His collaborations with designer Marc Caro in the early '90s on films like the darkly humorous "Delicatessen" and the even stranger and equally brilliant "City of Lost Children ," have proved that his is a special vision few filmmakers have equaled. When he tried his hand in Hollywood by directing 1998's "Alien Resurrection" he infused the series with his brilliant visual style, though the film had its flaws. In 2001 he directed what turned out to be the most successful French film in history, "Amelie," with the delightful Audrey Tatou in the title role.
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His most recent film "A Very Long Engagement" could wellbe his most beautiful and powerful work yet.
Audrey Tatou ("Dirty, Pretty Things," "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not") is back as Mathilde, a young woman whose true love Manech (Gaspard Ulliel, "The Brotherhood of the Wolf"), is reported killed on the front lines of WWI, and her harrowing, yet comic search for proof that he is still alive, tells truths about love and war like no recent film has.
It's 1917 and the fierce and bloody battle of the Somme wages on. With the insanity of trench warfare offering little hope for either the German or the French side, five French soldiers mutilate themselves with the forlorn hope they will be sent home from the front. The constant bombardments and useless deaths have taken their toll on the men, but, as we saw in Kubrick's "Paths of Glory," the French High Command has little interest in the well-being of their soldiers, ordering them to certain death while they play politics with their lives.
Instead of being ordered home, the five men are forced into No-Man's Land by their Commandant to be slaughtered by the German guns. One of these five is Manech, who held a lit cigarette above the trench so the sharpshooters on the other side could shoot a hole in his hand.
Mathilde, who is crippled by polio has been in love with Manech since they were children. They consummated their relationship before he went to the front and she refuses to believe he is dead. What follows is a brave search from the deadly trenches of the Somme to the Parisian halls of power, as she slowly pieces together what really happened to her lover and who is responsible.
"A Very Long Engagement" is filled with brilliant set pieces and wonderfully fluid camera work. From the opening shot of a broken statue of Jesus hanging off a cross high above the trenches, through taut and horrific battle scenes, where Jeunet's camera flies from above to swoop down like a bird of prey into the thick of the action, to in-depth discoveries of the motives of each of the many characters, it's an incredible journey.
This film shows us that filmmaking can still be an art, regardless of what American movies and business interests want us to think: that it's all about entertainment and more bang for the buck. Though there is a lot of brutal action, there is just as much beauty and lyricism. Mathilde's dreams are shown as mini-black and white silent films (which were very popular at the time). Her home life in a lighthouse on the coast of Brittany and the flashbacks of her love affair are told in sweeping shots as the camera starts out high above the lighthouse and traces their evolving relationship through the years.
One of the things that makes every Jeunet film a unique experience is his creative use of color and visual space. In Amelie he used a stylized palette of reds and greens to enhance the moods and personalities of his characters. Here everything is shot naturalistically, but with lots of little in-camera special effects, as if we have been transported to 1920's France where cinema was blossoming. Many of the effects are achieved the way they were done in the days of Louis Feuillade ("Les Vampires") and Abel Gance ("Napoleon").It's quite a show.
Every character, even the minor ones are fully drawn because they are all an integral part of the story. The details of every shot, every set and every piece of clothing, from the uniforms of the soldiers to the interiors and exteriors of post-war Paris and Brittany are lovingly re-created on the screen.
No one makes this kind of picture without a talented and dedicated crew of collaborators. The cinematography of Bruno Delbonnel, who also shot "Amelie" and "The Cat's Meow" is exceptional, as is the music of Angelo Badalamenti, who scored every David Lynch film since "Blue Velvet" as well as Jeunet's "City of Lost Children ." Herve Schneid, who edited all of Jeunet's films, including "Alien Resurrection," has outdone himself here, especially with the WWI scenes. The absurdity of war is wonderfully illustrated when the French use a hydrogen blimp hangar for a field hospital. Hydrogen is inflammable and bombs are falling everywhere. The cutting in the scene where the bomb meets the blimp is a fabulous example of the editing in every Juenet film.
As American movies succumb to the greed and stupidity of making dumbed-down entertainment for the masses without thought to message or content (i.e. bad remakes of mediocre films like "The Amityville Horror" and so many others), it's nice to know there are still people on this planet who see film as an art form that can paint a beautiful picture and tell a great story at the same time. "A Very Long Engagement" proves it can still be done and Jeunet knows how to do it. |
---For VirtualWordOne - Robert Lachman---
To buy "A Very Long Engagement" from Amazon.com, click here
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