Review of A Very Long Engagement (2004) by Hannibal O — 26 Sep 2008

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film is a demanding emotional epic that is alternately absorbing and frustrating, beautiful at times, elaborate but occasionally overloaded with the director's trademark digressions.

Anyone hoping for the same sort of child-like fantasy as Amelie is going to be taken aback, but for longtime fans of this unique visual stylist, this will definitely feel like a logical addition to his already amazing filmography.

The adjective that best describes the screenplay by Jeunet and Guillame Laurent is "exhausting." It's almost overloaded with incident, and Tautou's character spends the entire film rushing from place to place.

The end result is that the film is so busy that some of the most important emotional beats fall flat. It seems like the thing Jeunet is least interested in, but the way the film is structured, he's obviously hoping to emotionally obliterate us.

Visually, this is a feast for the eyes. Bruno Belbonnel is a tremendously talented DP, and he's done just as strong a job here as he did with Amelie, but he's managed to create a completely different visual palette this time.

The recreations of WWI are striking, both beautiful and horrible. In fact, all of the period detail is stunningly realized. When people bitch about digital effects ruining film, what they're really complaining about is the use of special effects to cover up for narrative deficiency.

When you see how Jeunet uses digital technology to recreate a specific time and place, you realize that its just another tool, like color or sound, and its only a problem in the hands of a lazy filmmaker.

As good as the film looks, the images are given beautiful support by Angelo Badalamenti's score, a romantic and ethereal thing that seems fairly atypical of this composer's work. There are any number of eccentric and wonderful performances in the film, and its hard to pick out which ones to highlight and compliment.

Obviously, the weight of the film rests on Tautou and she does everything she can with her character. To an extent, though, she feels more like a collection of mannerisms than a fully realized character.

She's got all these quirky habits and its charming, but I'm not sure I buy it. I think Gaspard Ulliel is miscast as Manech. He simply doesn't have the charisma to drive the film. He's not bad in his scenes with Tautou and there's a sweetness between the two of them in the flashbacks to better days, but the day after the film, its hard to even remember his face.

I completely forgot that Jodie Foster was supposed to be in the film, so when she showed up I was surprised. Her French is flawless, though, and she gives one of her patented raw nerve performances. Anyway, the film is good, but more because of its visuals than anything else.