A Very Long Engagement

Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

(2004) - France

I thought that it couldn’t be more appropriate to kick this blog off with a post featuring a French film. The reason behind this is because France is the official birthplace of film as we know it today (nope, not Hollywood). In the late 1800s, the Lumière Brothers started recording scenes on film and then showing them to audiences. Later on, other filmmakers started putting together narratives to make films with stories and the rest is history…

A Very Long Engagement is one of my top movies of all time and is one of the very few films out there to be set on the stage of World War I (at least from an American lens). It is also great for foreign film beginners since it stars Audrey Tautou (who appears in a few English-speaking roles like The DaVinci Code) and is directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, both of whom are famous for the movie, Amélie. And for those who really get into this movie, there is a book out there too.

The movie not only has a great storyline, but it shows the horrors and atrocities of World War I. The First World War was a war unlike any other… in this war, the military powers of Europe were all eager to test out their new toys, including machine guns, army tanks, and poisonous gases. This was really meant to be the war of the machines, but ended up being one of the biggest conflicts where little territory was gained by either side, but many lives were lost by all. And through the characters in the film, it helps to show their losses, gains, and the effects it had on their return to reality, if there was a return at all.

Mathilde’s (Tautou) fiancé is one of the soldiers who is fighting in the Great War. He and four other soldiers are court-marshaled for harming themselves or another in order to themselves out from behind the battlefield. They are banished to no man’s land where the military thinks they will receive their ultimate punishment of death. Back in Southwestern France, Mathilde receives news that her fiancé has been killed, but she just doesn’t believe it. She goes on a quest to find out what really happened to him and to see if he is still alive, contrary to everything she is told.

This is one of many amazing foreign films, so go check this one out while I travel the world (through film) to find the next great movie to write about… until next week!