A Very Long Engagement - 2 Disc Edition

Starring: Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel Original UK Premiere: 2004 Dvd Release: 13th June, 2005 Number Of Discs: 2 Format: Anamorphic, Box set, PAL, Subtitled, Widescreen, Region 2 Encoding Subtitled In: English

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A Very Long Engagement is a novel by Sebastien Japrisot, on which a 2004 film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet & distributed by Warner Bros. is based. It is a fictional tale about a young womans desperate search for her fiancé who might have been killed on a World War I battlefield. The films tagline is Never let go. // Five soldiers are convicted of self-mutilation in order to escape military service during World War I They are condemned to face near certain death in the no mans land between the French & German trench lines. It appears that all of them were killed in a subsequent battle, but the fiancée of one of the soldiers refuses to give up hope & begins to uncover clues as to what actually took place on the battlefield. The story is told both from the point of view of the fiancée in Paris & the French countryside - mostly Brittany - of the 1920s & in flashback to the battlefield. Gaspard Ulliel - Manech Langonnet, Mathildes fiancé. Jean-Pierre Becker - Lieutenant Esperanza. Jean-Pierre Darroussin - Caporal Benjamin Gordes, aka. Biscotte. Posters Of A Very Long Engagement

This is one of those films that appear once in a full moon. It is directed by the man who gave us 'Amelie' & it stars Audrey Tautou the star of Amelie. And there is also a cameo by Hollywood's own Jodie Foster.

This film tells the story of Mathilde , who is suffering from polio. Two maybe three years earlier, her fiance, Manech is presumed missing if not dead out in No-Man's Land. If he was dead then she would know about it. She is living with her uncle & aunt ever since her childhood. She is told by a former sargeant, in vain, that he is dead in a trench called Bingo Crepesule. She doesn't believe it of course so she does some detective work of her own. She is struck dumb on hearing that Manech survived the war & is hiding in a monastery where he's painting murals. She is overjoyed & of course they are back together.

What makes this film different from any other film like it, is the fact that Jean-Pierre Jeunet creates a wonderful & sometimes uplifting film & showing us Mathilde's pain when she hears of her fiance's death & the horrific & mesmerizing war scenes, some of the best I've seen. Seeing the couple Mathilde & Manech together in the flash-back scenes & at the end is whimsical without being too sentimental & these are lovely scenes nicely played.

The acting, especially by Audrey Tautou, is excellent & the cameo by Jodie Foster is a nice touch. The whole film is in French, & believe it or not, Ms Foster was bilingual from the age of 3. The fighting scenes are some of the best I've seen. At times graphic & effecting & filmed very skillfully.

It's a very good & nicely presented DVD package having the extras pages as newspaper cuttings. The deleted scenes add some pathos to the filmed story & I felt that a few of them should have been left in. Oh well. An extraordinary DVD.

Audrey Tautou is a French actress, born in Beaumont, Puy-de-Dôme, France. In 2000, she won the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti as her countrys most promising young film actress. She is best known to English moviegoers as the title character in the multi-award winning movie Amelie. Engaged to poet/cosmopolitan Lance Mazmanian. Un long dimanche de fiançailles - Mathilde. Dieu est grand, je suis toute petite - Michèle. Le Fabuleux destin dAmélie Poulain - Amélie Poulain. Le Battement dailes du papillon - Irène. Le Boiteux. Baby blues - Blandine Piancet. La Vieille barrière - La jeune fille du quartier. Casting. Archi-dégueulasse - Comédienne 1. La Vérité est un vilain défaut - La standardiste. Posters Of A Very Long Engagement

Editors Choice: A Very Long Engagement, Amelie, He Loves Me He Loves Me Not, View DVDology

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