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Rating: Mathilde narrates in the film's opening. She tells of loves, stories, men, and their lives... And she brings them back to life through her voice-over. She narrates of shattered hopes, lives cut short like fragile flowers in spring, of cruelty and tenderness, faithfulness and hypocrisy; she gathers the last remnants, buried under the veil of the collective memory of people still shaken by the tragedy, bringing to light stories and passions written on old yellowed papers, but not yet forgotten. She narrates, and relives it all in the first person, she who cannot resign herself to the drama...
Affected by polio, orphaned at the age of two, and adopted by a pair of uncles who, although unable to understand her deepest feelings, support her in her every little choice, Mathilde is the typical romantic dreamer of the post-war era, endowed with an enviable resilience that, in 1919 France, just emerged from the nightmare of the First World War, puts together the infinite pieces of a huge puzzle to find her young love, Manech, presumed to have been sentenced to death for seeking discharge from the front with self-mutilation, along with four other unfortunate companions, in the "isolated" and almost surreal outpost of Bingo Crepuscolo.
"A Very Long Engagement" (original title "Un Long Dimanche De Fiançailles"), is the fifth work of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, a French director known and appreciated by many for the famous film "Amélie's Fabulous World", from which he re-casts the lead actress, the beautiful Audrey Tautou, the new nymph of French cinema full of charisma and undeniable talent. The feature film, released in 2004, lives on constant contrasts and blends: on one side we find the grimness of the trench, submerged in mud, rain, and the blood of soldiers' torn bodies, depicted on film with gruesome realism, yet almost devoid of that excessive self-congratulatory celebration of violence common in many other productions; on the other, the intimacy of warm pastel colors, accompanied by the romantic string fugues of the soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti (a known collaborator of David Lynch) and by stunning vistas of meadows and cliffs at sunset, depicts the "magic" of Mathilde's life, between a perfectly reconstructed Paris and a quiet rural home, marred by the continuous - and not without a certain degree of irony - mortifications from the quirky companions of adventure (lawyers, private detectives, and acquaintances of the five hypothetical victims of Bingo Crepuscolo) and by the misleading nature of the clues collected on her way to the truth, but steadfastly supported by an eternal courage.
Bruno Delbonnel's photography is excellent, as is the direction, which frequently makes great use of digital techniques, and the set design curated by Guillaume Laurant and the director himself, who doesn't spare us from some cleverly executed Hollywood twists (the explosion of a dirigible, the erotic-noir "adventures" of the vengeful Tina Lombardi); the plot is intricate and novelistic, yet thoroughly engaging, based on the novel of the same name by Sébastien Japrisot, and the casting choice is spot-on, featuring a small but effective cameo by the ever-stunning Jodie Foster, who came to play one of the many characters in the story, which are but small pieces of that puzzle Mathilde attempts to reconstruct.
The ending is touching; even in its predictability, it retains all the flavor of triumph, beauty, and innocence, returning to childhood, and that utopian love that, despite everything, never fades, bringing down the curtain on yet another beautiful war-inspired film, following in the footsteps of "The English Patient" and "Saving Private Ryan" (though losing the drama contest with the latter), unfortunately underappreciated by those who hoped for the absence of a whimsical legacy, appreciated by others, of the previous work of the French director. A must-see.
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