A Very Long Engagement
2004’s A Very Long Engagement takes a very long road to get to its point. Meandering through various plot arches and side-stories, this film lacks the cohesiveness to properly back up its often-gorgeous look. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who is renowned for his idiosyncratic style of direction, the film was based on a 1993 book of the same name by Sebastien Japrisot, a French author and screenwriter. A Very Long Engagement was denied State financial aid because the film was being produced by Warner Bros., disqualifying it from receiving the normal financial aid set aside for French films produced by French companies.
A Very Long Engagement stars Audrey Tautou as Mathilde Donnay, a young French woman. Her fiancé, Manech Langonnet (Gaspard Ulliel) is convicted of self-mutilation on the front of the French-German conflict of World War I. Along with four other soldiers, Manech is marched to death in “no man’s land” and is to be killed in the crossfire of the ensuing battle as punishment for his war crimes of self-mutilation. The film follows the journey of Mathilde as she never gives up hope that Manech is still alive, travelling through various places and meeting various people along the way. Jeunet’s film criss-crosses Mathilde’s narrative with other narratives as well, telling some of the stories of some of the other soldiers that were also to have met their doom in no man’s land.
A Very Long Engagement also stars Jean-Pierre Becker as Sergeant Daniel Esperanza, Jodie Foster as Elodie Gordes, Clovis Cornillac as Benoit Notre-Dame, Marion Cotillard as Tina Lombardi, and Jean-Pierre Darroussin as Biscotte. There are several other characters as well, many of who are followed suddenly and without discernable reason. Jeunet seems interested in just about everyone he meets along the way in telling his story, which causes the film to become very perplexing very quickly. The characterizations are flawed not because of bad acting, but rather because of one-dimensional characterizations that leave us wanting more or, in many cases, leave us wanting far less.
The problem with A Very Long Engagement lies in its inability to tell a proper story. While the idea behind the film is compelling enough and the journey taken by Mathilde to find Manech is suitably epic, it seems that Jeunet’s methods of telling that story and expressing that idea are sorely mistaken for enjoyable storytelling. The characters swirl around one another, often leading to dead ends in the plot or long-winded explanations. There is no urgency to Mathilde’s search, as she often seems more interested in finding out what happened to the four other soldiers than her beloved Manech. The story unfolds in such a way that we are not introduced pragmatically to Mathilde’s grief, but are rather told of it in passing.
A Very Long Engagement is a good-looking film, but that, too, seems to be a part of its downfall. It’s almost as though Jeunet has various scenes and characters compete for airtime, giving them just a glimpse of compelling story and then pulling the rug out from under them to never be heard from again. This leaves the gorgeous visuals in the lurch as byproducts of bad storytelling. The film is shot in unrealistic tones to add to the fantastical journey of it all, often telling its story in sepia, gold, or gray tones. The scenes involving trench warfare in World War I are especially interesting with the violence and brutality of the situation fully encapsulated by the cinematography. As with most everything else in the film, however, the war scenes left me wanting more…or less.
One of the biggest problems with the film is that Mathilde’s search for Manech parallels a search by Tina Lombardi, the prostitute, to find her own man. The two searches are almost given equal airtime and are intermittently cast over one another, as we become confused as to whom we’re really looking for here and, moreover, why we really care. Each story is given such a sense of reverence, too, as though we’re supposed to get caught up in these little moments. The Jodie Foster storyline, in which her character sleeps with another man and falls in love with him, is given more airtime than necessary and, as such, disintegrates the central plot. A Very Long Engagement is filled with these distractions and, eventually, I forgot all about Mathilde and Manech. Their great love had been vanquished by dragons of bad storytelling.
So while the style of A Very Long Engagement is often very impressive, it still does little to make up for the muddled concepts, overblown storytelling, and one-dimensional characters. Audrey Tautou is decent enough here, but her melancholy approach to her performance is underwhelming and leaves little to notice in such a crowded story. Sadly, A Very Long Engagement didn’t hold up very well upon my second viewing, either, and remains a cluttered, confounding, and zigzagging bit of cinema.
Trailer:
