A Very Long Engagement

(Un long dimanche de fiançailles)

Several years ago, I was watching… I want to say it was American Pop, and preceding the movie was a trailer for The City of Lost Children. The film looked bizarre enough to pique my interest. At the time, I was a student, still expanding my visual vocabulary. Jean-Pierre JeunetÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s regale seemed the obvious place to start.

At times, I found myself disregarding the dialogue entirely, all my faculties absorbed by the lucent imagery. Where the viewer is overwhelmed by the awesome power of his earlier vision, in A Very Long Engagement, Jeunet applies just enough restraint, though not too much, to succeed in an economically-balanced stimulation of the viewer’s senses.

The film is like Jeunet’s previous excursion with Tautou, Amelie, but turned inside out. As Amelie Poulain, Tautou goes about creating little mysteries for everyone… here, she sets out to solve one for herself. The mystery begins with a letter that suggests to Mathilde that some of the men in Manench’s unit are still alive–though condemned as traitors.

The opening is set amidst the most brutal war of our time–World War I. Its barbarism lies in the fact that it occurred at the transition of the Industrial Revolution. Thus, we see Manench (Gaspard Ulliel) and many of his comrades inflicting wounds upon themselves to escape the insuperable torture of this warÃ¢â‚¬â€the only in history to clash traditional cavalry against mechanized forces of destruction.

Mathilde (Audrey Tautou), Manench’s fiancee, is the center of the story. They met as children, in as honest and truthful an introduction as I have seen. Manench asks Mathilde, “Does it hurt when you walk?”

Having Cerebral Palsy, I experienced similar introductions from genuinely inquisitive people… and I respect them for that in the same way Mathilde respects Manench for curiosity. But her polio is just one aspect of her character.

I like the fact that Jeunet doesn’t dwell on it in some contrived manner… though their use of her disability as a plot device at one point is tactical, ingenious, and genuinely funny. Like Mathilde, I don’t spend most of my time thinking about my disability. I’ve lived with it long enough to be oblivious to it. That shows in her character, and that allows us to focus on the real story. A lesser movie may have used her polio to elicit pity or sympathy from the audience, and Manench… but, you will see, the persevering Mathilde requires neither pity nor sympathy.

The central narrative ensues when she learns of Manench’s disappearance. Refusing to accept an ambiguous end, she sets on a journey to discover what has become of him.

In her quest to have some sense of denouement to Manench’s fate, Mathilde holds two aces. One is a caricature, the private investigator named, aptly, Germain “Peerless” Pire (Ticky Holgado). The other is a prostitute, Tina Lombardi (Marillon Cotillard), whose desire for closure in this matter is driven by a… rather different emotion than the innate sanguinity of Mathilde.

Jeunet uses a series of visual evolutions… Some are comic and delightful, as when Mathilde recalls her first moment of intimacy with Manench. It’s dangerous to play with matches. You may just start a fire… so to speak.

That Jeunet likes to play with the audience in this manner, I feel, is a delight. Sex isn’t vulgar, but when you have such an obvious and honest connection of love before you, to quote Roger Ebert (describing Marilyn Monroe’s singing number in a seductive dress in Some Like it Hot), “Nudity would have been superfluous.”

Another example of visual thematic progression for comic effect, to remind us perhaps that, during wartime, one can and probably needs to find amusement in whatever little forms it arrives… The mailman comes every day to the house of Sylvain and Benedicte, Mathilde’s aunt and uncle guardians. Mathilde waits patiently, hoping for news of her Manench.

Each time the mailman approaches, he amuses himself by braking to slide his bicycle tires on the gravel, kicking up rocks and upsetting Mathilde’s family–though they seem to be almost as delighted, for it gives them an opportunity for issuing a glib reprimand. The punchline arrives when a crash is heard outside. Suffice it to say, Sylvain achieves his revenge in a way too hilarious for me to spoil. Again, in that time, in that place, it’s probably better they have these daily distractions to laugh at.

All the suffering and torture of the war would send most people into hysteria or depression. However, through all this, and though her search often seems in vain, Mathilde remains ever optimistic that she will find her Manench. She must, not only for her sanity, but for the soul of her lifelong love.

A Very Long Engagement | Running Time: 2 hours 13 Minutes | Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 | MPAA Rating: R, For Violence and sexuality | Released by Warner Independent Pictures