A Very Long Engagement

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A Very Long Engagement

"A Very Long Engagement" film poster
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Produced by Francis Boespflug
Bill Gerber
Jean-Louis Monthieux
Fabienne Tsaï
Written by Sébastien Japrisot (novel),
Jean-Pierre Jeunet,
Guillaume Laurant
Starring Audrey Tautou,
Gaspard Ulliel,
Marion Cotillard,
Dominique Pinon,
Chantal Neuwirth,
André Dussolier,
Ticky Holgado
Music by Angelo Badalamenti
Cinematography Bruno Delbonnel
Editing by Hervé Schneid
Distributed by Warner Independent Pictures
Release date(s) October 27, 2004
Running time 133 min
Country France/U.S.A.(see main article)
Language French
Budget $56.6 million
Gross revenue $70 million

A Very Long Engagement (French: Un long dimanche de fiançailles) is a 2004 French romantic war film, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou. It is a fictional tale about a young woman's desperate search for her fiancé who might have been killed on a World War I battlefield (the Somme). It was based on a novel of the same name, written by Sebastien Japrisot, first published in 1991.

Contents

[edit] Plot

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 man's land between the French and German trench lines. It appears that all of them were killed in a subsequent battle, but Mathilde, the fiancée of one of the soldiers, refuses to give up hope and begins to uncover clues as to what actually took place on the battlefield. She is all the while driven by the constant reminder of what her fiancé had carved into one of the bells of the church near their home, MMM for Manech Aime Mathilde (Manech Loves Mathilde; a pun on the French word aime, which is pronounced like the letter "M". In the English-language version, this is changed to "Manech's Marrying Mathilde").

Along the way, she discovers the brutally corrupt system used by the French government to deal with those who tried to escape the front. She also discovers the stories of the other men who were sentenced to the no man's land as a punishment. She, with the help of a private investigator, attempts to find out what happened to her fiancé. The story is told both from the point of view of the fiancée in Paris and the French countryside—mostly Brittany—of the 1920s, and in flashback to the battlefield. In fact, however, the couple are from Cap-Breton, in the Landes department of southwest France. This is made clear in the novel.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Awards and reception

The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction and Academy Award for Best Cinematography at the Oscars. However, it was not selected by the French government as the French submission for the award for Best Foreign Language Film. Marion Cotillard won the César Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

The film received generally positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 77% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 140 reviews.[1] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 76 out of 100, based on 39 reviews.[2] The film had a production budget of $56.6 million USD and earned $70.1 million in theaters worldwide.[3]

  • Academy Awards (USA)
    • Nominated: Best Art Direction (Aline Bonetto)
    • Nominated: Best Cinematography (Bruno Delbonnel)
  • BAFTA Awards (UK)
    • Nominated: Best Film not in the English Language
  • César Awards (France)
    • Won: Best Actress – Supporting Role (Marion Cotillard)
    • Won: Best Cinematography (Bruno Delbonnel)
    • Won: Best Costume Design (Madeline Fontaine)
    • Won: Best Production Design (Aline Bonetto)
    • Won: Most Promising Actor (Gaspard Ulliel)
    • Nominated: Best Actress – Leading Role (Audrey Tautou)
    • Nominated: Best Director (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
    • Nominated: Best Editing (Hervé Schneid)
    • Nominated: Best Film
    • Nominated: Best Music (Angelo Badalamenti)
    • Nominated: Best Sound (Vincent Arnardi, Gérard Hardy and Jean Umansky)
    • Nominated: Best Writing (Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant)

[edit] References

  1. ^ "A Very Long Engagement - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/very_long_engagement/. Retrieved 2008-02-06. 
  2. ^ "Very Long Engagement, A (2004): Reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/verylongengagement. Retrieved 2008-02-06. 
  3. ^ "A Very Long Engagement (2004)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=verylongengagement.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-06. 

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Feature films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet
1990s
2000s
Amélie (2001) · A Very Long Engagement (2004) · Micmacs (2009)
Co-Directed
Shorts

Foutaises (1990)
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