A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT

France, 2004, 133 minutes, Colour.
Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Jean- Pierre Becker, Andre Dussolier, Jodie Foster, Tcheky Karyo, Denis Lavant, Dominique Pinon, Chantal Neuwirth.
Directed by Jean- Pierre Jeunet.

This is a very French film (tres francais) which hit the right note with the French public. While non-French audiences will like it, its French sensibilities will not be entirely comfortable with them.

Matthilde, the young Frenchwoman who is handicapped by polio when a girl, is one of those very sweet girls, shy and retiring, who responds to an emotional crisis with surprisingly relentless determination which is commented on too obtrusively by an offscreen female voice who describes the emotional stress that Matthilde is going through in that literary, somewhat abstract way that the French love.

This is a World War One story from the trenches at the Somme. The trenches themselves, the grim no-man's land, the mud and squalid environment are re-created with telling detail. We feel that we are there. We are also immersed in the bombardments, the pounding, the crashing noise, the exploding shells and flying earth. Although this happened 90 years earlier, it is a relevant reminder of the impact of that war in Europe and for allies beyond and the needless loss of hundreds of thousands of lives.

Based on a novel by Sebastian J, the film is a jigsaw of war narrative in 1917, the aftermath of war in Paris and beyond in 1920 and the detection that Matthilde instigates to try to find her lost fiance who had been condemned to execution for self-mutilation along with four other soldiers. This means that the audience continually moves between the war and the consequences, with strong emotional shifts, as we learn more about the men and their lives, the callously self-centred action of officers (which makes one want to see again the seminal films of Kubrick and Losey, Paths of Glory and King and Country, which dealth with similar themes) and Matthilde's determination despite ever-increasing possibilities that her fiance is dead.

The film was directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet. He is an offbeat stylist in his range of cinematic devices for creating atmosphere (Delicatessen, City of Lost Children, Alien Resurrection). While his narrative is more straightforward considering the jigsaw screenplay, his style of camera shots, split screens, use of stock footage, means that there is continuous suggestion for deeper emotional response and understanding.

Jeunet made an international name for himself with his magic realism comedy, Amelie. He is working again with the star, Audrey Tautou. She has a charming and pretty screen presence. This time more demands are made on her and she is quite persuasive as Matthilde. She still has a touch of the fey, but there is steel beneath. An impressive cast creates quite a gallery of characters both in war and peace, including a surprise for world audiences with Jodie Foster as a war widow.

A Very Long Engagement can be added to the list of respected war films as well as the list of intense love stories that the French call 'amour fou'.

1. The popularity of the film, especially in France? For non-French audiences?

2. The work of the director, his work with the star, their combining well together?

3. The importance of the technical achievement: the re-creation of the period, the re-creation of Paris during World War One, the countryside? The re-creation of the war, the trenches, war action, planes, bombs and explosions, the Zeppelin and the fire in the hospital centre? The importance of the sound engineering to immerse audiences in the experience of the battlefield?

4. The musical score, reflecting the period?

5. The title, its tone, expectations? Symbolic of France and its experience of the war years, the postwar period? The trauma and melancholy that France experienced? A maimed France? A self-mutilating France?

6. The structure of the film and the introduction to the five prisoners, the voice-over and the commentary throughout the film? The flashbacks for each of them, the self-mutilation, the background of their lives and work, their being taken into the army, the effect of the army on them, shell-shock, madness? The cumulative effect?

7. Menach and Matthilde: the introduction to Menach, the effect of the war, his fears, the bombardments? The flashbacks, the two as children, becoming friends, Matthilde and her limp, Menach at the lighthouse? Their talk, love for each other, Matthilde suspended from the lighthouse? The matches and her disrobing? Lovemaking? The suddenness of his having to go off to war?

8. The military tone of the film, the five self-mutilating prisoners, marching through the trenches, their going to No Man’s Land? The military law, the death penalty? The details of the trenches, the No Man’s Land, the officers and their life, the harshness of their decisions, the kindness of the soldier who scrounged everything?

9. In No Man’s Land, the gradual revelation of what happened to each of the five? The French and their going over the top, the Germans and their shooting? The bombardments and the planes flying over, explosions and deaths? The improbability of survival? Menach and his friend changing the tags and his survival?

10. The experience of the war, its effect on France, the battles around the Somme? The battles for small areas of land? Going over the top, close combat, firing point-blank, slaughter?

11. Matthilde and the aftermath of the war, the information from Esperanza? The scrounger and his help, eating at their table, his memories? Matthilde in herself, her leg, her going to the lawyer and sitting in the wheelchair, persuading him to help, her believing that Menach was still alive, the details of her research, search, the arrival of all the letters (and the joke about the postman skidding in the gravel)? The care of her uncle and aunt for so many years? Going to the archives, on the ladder, the lawyer concealing documents? Her hiring the private detective, the discussions with him, his finding Tina Lombardi, finding Elodie and the other witnesses?

12. The story of the farmer, his relationship with his wife, mutilating himself, in the No Man’s Land, survival, his disappearing, his wife, Matthilde finding him and getting the information about Menach? The man with his wife, wanting her pregnant, urging her to take his friend as a lover, her response to him, the soldier’s reaction? His death? The character of the woman, from Poland, her meeting with Matthilde, the discussions, the flashbacks, their sharing friendship? The Corsican, his seeming a bandit, tough in the trenches, mutilation, the violence of his death?

13. Tina Lombardi, her relationship with the Corsican, her search for him, vengeance, the fat officer and killing him, the officer in the tunnel and shooting him? Her arrest, in prison, Matthilde’s visit, their discussions, her help in finding Menach, the visualising of her being guillotined?

14. The German woman at the restaurant, the look to Matthilde, their meeting in the restroom, the information?

15. The portrait of Matthilde’s uncle and aunt, genial, the country, their care for her, the reaction to the postman in the gravel, their work in the fields, accompanying her on her search?

16. Matthilde, going to the battlefield, her being carried over the battlefield – and audience response to the new growth after the battlefields and the trenches?

17. Her going to the farm, learning the truth, going to the mental institution, Menach and his being there, his loss of memory, the importance of her visit, her love for him, communication, hope?

18. The French and their liking of mad love stories, amour fou? Matthilde’s intuitions, faith, love and a future?