Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement is a brilliantly-conceived and impeccably-created tapestry of emotion and perception that transcends its individual setting and story. The movie takes place around World War I and it concerns the young Mathilde (Tautou) and her lover Manech (Ulliel). In 1917, Manech had been traumatized by the vulgar and violent sights and actions of trench warfare. He got himself shot in the hand by the Germans in the hopes of being sent home injured. But instead he was court-martialed for self-mutilation and sentenced to No Man's Land at Bingo Crepuscule with four other unlucky souls. Three years later in 1920, Mathilde believes against all odds that Manech is still breathing and keeps her hope alive with simple superstitious gambles. She hires detective Germain Pire (which ironically translates to "Germain the Worst") to find out where he is. While following the winding trail, she soon discovers that Tina Lombardi (Cotillard), another soldier's lover, is also tracking the five men from Bingo Crespuscule. But instead of reuniting with her man, she ends up killing the soldiers involved in his unjust sentence.This movie, like all of Jeunet's movies (and Tim Burton's), contains within it a fully-realized alternate world filled to the brim with small oddities and assumed rules. After watching for just a few minutes, you get an intimate sense of the beauty and hope of the people inhabiting this macabre and sinister environment. Both Tautou and Cotillard pull this off masterfully, putting the utmost heart and honesty into their decidedly disparate but equally compelling roles. They show the vast variability love can take on, from revenge to forgiveness. Their sadness--and their happiness--is seemingly palpable and absolutely heart-wrenching.
Technically, the film is incredible. It is so well-constructed that many of the shots and scenes seem airy and natural, despite their being planned down to the degree of the camera angle. The lights, the special effects, the cinematography, the sets, the costumes, the makeup; everything is pitch perfect and as beautiful as it could possibly be expected to be. The editing is precise down to the individual frame. The only complaint that could be lodged against the cinematics of the movie lie in its complicated storyline. It is easy to get lost in its labyrinthine plot. For me, however, that just made me want to watch the movie again and again so I could gather all the subtle details and clues and piece them together.
There are two things I absolutely love about this movie. The first is the concept of point of view and the unreliable narrator. It takes Rashomon on in a different and new light. It examines illusion in the absence of deception and hope in the absence of reason. With different points of view come different stories and different conclusions, but you soon realize that you can't always trust what you see... or what you think you see. The second is the relationship between Mathilde and Manech. Something about it--in its entire breadth and depth--is so pure and so innocent that you simply cannot believe for a second that war or even death can destroy it. It is somehow unbreakable, and the ending to the film incorporates that concept so fully and so brilliantly that I cannot speak about it highly enough. It is the perfect ending to a perfect movie. Watch this movie. And then watch it again. I hope you fall in love with it as much as I did.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344510/