Tagline: Never Let Go.
From the director and star of Amelie(Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Audrey Tautou) comes a very different love story, A Very Long Engagement, based on the acclaimed novel by Sebastien Japrisot. Screenplay adaptation by Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Guillaume Laurant. The film is set in France near the end of World War I in the deadly trenches of the Somme, in the gilded Parisian halls of power, and in the modest home of an indomitable provincial girl.
It tells the story of this young woman’s relentless, moving and sometimes comic search for her fiancée, who has disappeared. He is one of five French soldiers believed to have been court-martialed under mysterious circumstances and pushed out of an allied trench into an almost-certain death in no-man’s land. What follows is an investigation into the arbitrary nature of secrecy, the absurdity of war, and the enduring passion, intuition and tenacity of the human heart.
As World War I draws to an end, a young French woman’s greatest fight is about to begin. Mathilde has received word that her fiancé Manech is one of five wounded soldiers who have been court-martialed and pushed out into the no-man’s land between the French and German armies… and almost certain death.
Unwilling to accept that her beloved Manech is lost to her forever, Mathilde embarks on an extraordinary journey to discover the fate of her lover. At each turn, she receives a different heartbreaking variation on how Manech must have spent those last days, those last moments. Still, she never gets discouraged.
If Manech were dead, Mathilde would know. With a steadfast faith, strengthened by hope and a stubbornly cheerful disposition, Mathilde follows her investigation to its conclusion, convincing those who might help her and ignoring those who will not. As she draws closer to the truth about the five unfortunate soldiers and their brutal punishment, she is drawn deeper into the horrors of war and the indelible marks it leaves on those whose lives it has touched.
A Very Long Engagement (2004)
Directed by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Dominique Pinon, Jodie Foster, Chantal Neuwirth, Ticky Holgado, André Dussollier, Marion Cotillard, Jean-Pierre Becker
Screenplay by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Guillaume Laurant
Production Design by: Aline Bonetto
Cinematography by: Bruno Delbonnel
Film Editing by: Hervé Schneid
Costume Design by: Madeline Fontaine
Set Decoration by: Véronique Melery
Music by: Angelo Badalamenti
MPAA Rating: R for violence and sexuality.
Distributed by: Warner Independent
Release Date: November 26, 2004
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $6,524,389 (9.3%)
Foreign: $63,591,479 (90.7%)
Total: $70,115,868 (Worldwide)
Visits: 70
