A Very Long Engagement

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Credits: Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel and Dominique Pinon .

Details: (M), 135 mins, France, English

Synopsis: As World War I draws to an end in France, Mathilde (Audrey Tautou) gets word that her fiancé Manech (Gaspard Ulliel) is one of five soldiers who wounded themselves to avoid the trenches; they have been court-martialled and pushed out into the no-man's land between the French and German armies to almost certain death. Unwilling to accept that her beloved Manech is lost to her forever, Mathilde embarks on an extraordinary journey to discover the fate of her lover. At each turn, she receives a different heartbreaking variation on how Manech must have spent those last days, those last moments. Still, she never gets discouraged.
 

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It depicts the horrors of war authentically and with respect.

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A Very Long Engagement
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A Very Long Engagement

Well our next film is firmly back in the land of mere mortals. After the success of Amelie, Director Jean Pierre Jeunet and Audrey Tautou team up again in A Very Long Engagement. Based on the novel by Jean Baptiste Rossi, under his pseudonym, Sebastian Japrisot. A Very Long Engagement is set towards the end of World War I, when Mathilde, played by Tautou, learns that her fianc?, Manech, was one of five men court martialled for self mutilation, and banished into no man\'s land between the French and German front lines. Mathilde stubbornly refuses to believe he is dead and she embarks on her own investigation into what really happened to the men. Jean Pierre Jeunet combines his distinctive hyper realistic visual style and darkly comic approach, that we\'re familiar with from films like Delicatessen and The City Of Lost Children. Audrey Tautou\'s performance is playful and intelligent without being sentimental. The production design, cinematography and score by Angelo Badalamenti, are all deliciously realised. What makes this film so significant is that Jeunet depicts the horrors of war authentically and with respect, but thankfully avoids the glorification and pumped up heroics often seen in war films. Make a date with A Very Long Engagement - a truly remarkable and unpredictable story about love and war.

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