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| Very Long Engagement, A |
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  (7/10)
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Runtime: 134 |
| Public Rating: 8.65 (65 votes) |
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Mystery/Drama/War/Romance |
Year: 2004 |
| Writer(s): Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Guillaume Laurant |
| Distributor: Warner Brothers |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
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Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s adaptation of Sebastien Japrisot’s award-winning French novel, A Very Long Engagement, is, as expected, visually striking, but, on a narrative level, sprawling, convoluted and ultimately, seriously flawed. Japrisot’s novel, combining war, mystery, and romance was likely a difficult book to adapt for the cinema, in part because of its mix of disparate narrative conventions, and in large part, because any novel with multiple storylines, multiple characters, and a complex, flashback structure (driven by an epistolary device) is likely better suited to a mini-series than to a theatrical film. Jeunet once again proves why he’s better known for his striking visual imagination (Delicatessen, City of Lost Children, and Amelie), than for his narrative skills. A Very Long Engagement’s principal problems lie in its sprawling, unfocused narrative, with far too many plotlines, an overly passive, reactive central character, Mathilde (Amelie’s Audrey Tatou), and, at its center, a maudlin, clichéd romance that does little to counter to the harsh, brutal scenes of war in the trenches.
Following the structure of Japrisot’s novel, Jeunet and his co-screenwriter, Guillaume Laurant, opens A Very Long Engagement in January, 1917, in the trenches, with the French on one side and the Germans on the other, separated by a thin strip of barren territory, no-man’s land. Five men, accused and court-martialed for self-mutilation, have been punished with exile to that no-man’s land, to die there within sight of the French and the Germans. The five men are from various walks of life, a carpenter, a welder, a farmer, a pimp, and a young man, presumably a fisherman, Manech (Gaspard Ulliel). Jeunet’s meticulous attention to detail is on display here, with the camera literally opening, iris-like, on a broken Christ figure on a cross, then gliding down to capture the men, in rain-soaked coats, walking in ankle deep water, through one end of the trench to the other. From a storytelling perspective, Jeunet’s decision to open the film here is problematic, since the audience is thrust immediately into the war scenes, without the context necessary to feel all but minimal sympathy for the characters. Given the blue coats and helmets almost all the characters wear during these scenes, it’s also difficult for the audience to distinguish between the characters, even after they’ve been properly introduced.
A Very Long Engagement then skips forward three years, to Brittany, and Mathilde, the ostensible protagonist. Mathilde, left lame by the onset of polio as a child, has refused to accept that Manech died in the war. Instead, she’s convinced, beyond all hope and available evidence, that Manech somehow survived the war (how, and why, is left to the audience’s imagination). Mathilde shares her hopes and dreams, and a relatively carefree, bucolic existence with her uncle and aunt, Sylvain (Dominque Pinon) and Benedicte (Chantal Neuwirth). Mathilde is the classic romantic heroine, driven by her determination desire to recapture her first, and only, true love. Unfortunately, Jeunet errs here in making Mathilde far too passive a character. In the novel, Mathilde is wheelchair bound, and thus limited in her movements, investigating the events surrounding Manech’s disappearance through a series of letters. Here, Jeunet sought to make her more active, but still fell short. The search for Manech becomes a reality once Mathilde has received a letter from a dying soldier, living his last days in a military hospital. The soldier, Lieutenant Esperanza (Jean-Pierre Becker), both describes the events of that fateful day, and transfers a box to Mathilde’s care.
The box contains the letters and personal effects of the five doomed men. Mathilde then decides to employ a private detective, German Pire (Ticky Holgado) to investigate whether any of the men actually survived. Pire, while a whimsical, light-hearted addition to the narrative, is, at best, an extraneous character. Here, with Mathilde released from her wheelchair, Jeunet had the opportunity to make her far more active, discovering clues, uncovering information on her own, rather than relying on the detective (on two occasions, Pire is limited to simply confirming the information Mathilde has unearthed on her own). Instead, the audience is presented with a series of trips to and from Paris, with Mathilde returning to her home in Brittany to await letters with new information about Manech and the other men. While the epistolary form may work in a novel, here it often leaves Mathilde with little to do. Jeunet attempts to ameliorate this problem through visual flourishes, with Mathilde sitting at her desk reading a letter on one side of the screen, and a recreation of the events described in the letter on the other.
Given the nature of the singular event that triggers the novel, the five men condemned to no-man’s land for self-mutilation, it’s to be expected that each of the five men, in turn, will become the focus of the narrative. Unfortunately, these multiple flashbacks to the men and their lives add to Mathilde’s marginalization. That marginalization is itself exacerbated when, mid-film, the storyline involving one condemned man, Bastoche (Jérôme Kircher), his lifelong friend, Benjamin Gordes (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), and Gordes wife, takes center stage. That story is far more compelling that Mathilde and Manech’s story of idealized, romanticized love, and an implicit comparison between the two storylines makes clear which storyline would have been far more engaging for contemporary audiences. Unfortunately, that storyline quickly makes an exit, and the audience is left with Mathilde’s renewed desire to find Manech, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
Jeunet erred in yet another way: he waited far too long to present the romantic scenes between Mathilde and Manech. When those scenes unfold well past the midpoint in the film, following Mathilde and Manech from childhood into early adulthood, the audience can finally begin to understand the nature of the relationship and, as a result, what was lost. The audience can finally begin to invest emotionally in the Mathilde and Manech storyline. The audience glimpses the first rush of love, but also witnesses Mathilde tempting fate as Manech leaves for the war (one of the few scenes that resonates across the film, as Mathilde’s later actions develop an unexpected poignancy).
Even then, Jeunet’s desire to include all the major storylines from the novel leads him to follow yet another subplot, a woman “associated” with one of the five men, Tina Lombardi (Marion Cotillard), a Mata-Hari-like creation, an Angel of Death dispensing punishment for presumed wrongs via carefully concealed weapons. Alas, it’s one storyline too many, and one Jeunet resolves via a meeting between the two women inside a prison moments before the other woman's sentence is to be carried out. Worse, Jeunet decision to intercut footage that resembles a silent, black-and-white newsreel undercuts whatever pathos the character’s fate deserves.
Nonetheless, even with multiple book-to-screen adaptation problems, A Very Long Engagement is rarely a dull, unengaging film, primarily due to Jeunet’s meticulous, rigorous attention to period detail (assisted by Aline Bonetto’s production design) and visual composition (aided by longtime cinematographer, Bruno Delbonnel), from the lived-in trenches (filmed on 50-acres of land), to the rustic charms of Mathilde’s home in Brittany, to the overhead or street-level shots of a golden-hued Paris, circa 1920 (the integration of CGI backgrounds and live-action is, for the most part, seamless), especially the Place de l’Opera and the Palais de Trocadero. With the action scenes set in and around the trenches, Jeunet sets a new standard for war film, matching Stanley Kubrick’s camerawork in Paths of Glory, but surpassing Kubrick’s film, in both immediacy and in imagination. For an example of the latter, the audience need look no further than the scenes set in no-man’s land, specifically the scenes of Manech, a barren tree, and a German biplane. Angelo Badalamenti’s score also deserves mention (Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and City of Lost Children). Badalamenti creates a subtle, simple, but evocative theme for Mathilde that complements both her search for her lost lover, and the few scenes they share together.
© Mel Valentin, 19th December, 2004
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