Sunday, July 29, 2007
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7 comments:
As I suspected I really liked it.
Absolutely stunning visuals. The war scenes looks so beautiful and elegant, yet still chaotic and devastating.
I thought it told a fairly interesting story that kept me interested and invested. I absolutely loved her scenes where she would say "If I beat the car to the corner, than Manech is alive?" Those scenes were so poetic in the simplicity, but say so much.
If I have one complaint, it is that Amelie was so much more joyful. Obviously that would be hard to convey here, but the Audrey Tautou I fell in love with was so whimsical and care free. Here she is restrained and subdued. It may not be fair to fault the film for this because she really is quite good in it, but its hard for me not to desire it...at least a bit more. That said the film is quite funny for the subject matter. It's just her character isn't the kind of portrayal I grew to love.
Much like Citizen Kane and my recent viewing of The Killers, the story is told through flashbacks as she investigates what happened to her fiancee. Truths and lies are given as we must put together what exactly happened. One thing I loved was while we get a piece of the main plot, we would also get to spend some time with these other fascinating side characters and their stories are fulfilling themselves. I do also wish that it was more a mystery you could play along with, but that couldn't work with this plot.
The last half is really damn good as we see the whole story finally unfold. Their reunion was subtle and sublime in such a magical way.
My biggest compliment I could give is that I didn't hate Gaspard Ulliel who played the lost fiancee. And after seeing Hannibal Rising, that says a lot.
Now I must check out Jeunet's other films. City of Lost Children and Delicatessen are all I need to complete his filmography.
PS What the hell was Jodie Foster doing in here? Doesn't matter...her story was one of the best. It just took me out of the movie for a minute.
I purposely waited to post on this one because I wanted to hear what you had to say first Chachi. And I can see some of your points, but I just don't share all of them.
Unfortunately, I didn't like it quite as much as you do. I would place it above The Doors but well below The Age of Innocence in our Screening Room Sessions (and I'm still waiting on the first film to really 'wow' me).
But getting to the why of it, A Very Long Engagement is odd for the sake of being odd. Jeunet apparently hasn't met a close up he didn't like and do I even need to mention the plainly horrendous line "Doggie fart, gladdens my heart?" (which evidently wasn't terrible enough the first time that it beared repeating later in the movie?)
It's also a four hour movie condensed into two and a half hours through the use of editing, overlapping pictures and loads of flashbacks. Loads of them. We get the same stories told from different vantage points (but sometimes with minimal new information) and damned if it didn't take me halfway into the movies running time until I felt I had a grasp on what the hell was going on and why.
All I knew was Mathilde wanted to find Manech and I was getting a whole lot of other stories instead of that one. Some good, some bad. But you know the one that entertained me the most? The stupid little side detail about the postman and Mathilde's dad fighting over his gravel patch. Trivial, but humorous, and it kept me away from the serial killing widow and the private investigator at least.
You're absolutely right about the visuals though. They're great. But I expected more from this film than just some pretty pictures. I didn't find the story all that compelling. I didn't like Manech all that much (he seemed like the flatest character in the movie when Mathilde and Manech needed to be the strongest ones). Hell, even his fellow soldiers for the most part lose track of him because he's insignificant and out carving on trees and whistling dixie or something.
And you're right about Tautou too, Jeunet for some reason squeezes all the life out of her. She's stonefaced throughout a large part of the picture. I will admit to being touched when she finds out that Manech is, after all, alive. But it was a too brief moment, whereas Amelie was overflowing with them.
Honestly, A Very Long Engagement dissuaded me from seeing more of Jeunet's work right now. I enjoyed Amelie as much as I did because of its zest, its oddity and love for life and love itself but A Very Long Engagement seemed to try to ape the oddity of Amelie in a context that just didn't work, war.
I think I'm being way too harsh on the picture as I write this and I'm not focusing on the good as much as I should, but I want to pick it apart a little and see if you can counter my feelings on it. Maybe it just didn't work for me and it did for you, simple as that. But even like you said, it was "fairly interesting," but I don't think it was anything special.
Also, on another note, I'll try to post a calendar on the main page soon with Screening Room Sessions for all of August. And I've got a bunch of films I caught up with in addition to A Very Long Engagement that I will elaborate on later. Check for both those soon.
I see what your saying, but I thinks its oddity may have been Jeunet's way of making it different from other war films. Its oddity makes it humorous during the bleakest of times. Without it, could it have been a more powerful and emotional epic? Perhaps, but Jeunet is more interested in doing something different. He clearly doesn't what to fall into cliches, which I would say this film has minimal of.
I agree Manech is flat, and the film would have benefited more if I showed he desire to find her as much as she wanted to find him. I did like the MMM carvings though, which I guess was Jeunet's way of addressing it.
Tautou was sullen for sure, but I find it hard for me to discredit the film on that note simply because I preferred her in something else. I hate people that watch Eternal Sunshine and say "Carrey wasn't all that funny, and that's what I like to see him do." Did she play it right for this movie? I say yes she did. I just hope that her next film is a much more whimsical movie because after both this and Da Vinci, she needs to revisit that.
Also I think the overlapping flashbacks while tedious at times, also made it seem all the more realistic and convoluted. People remember events differently. And without Mathilda knowing whom is truthful or not, causes her to have to retrace steps occasionally. Still it could have been tighter and less futile at times.
In the end, I would say it didn't WOW me as I expected. I prefer Amelie to it, but just seeing his visuals makes me what to check out his work. City of Lost Children tells the tale of a man whom steals dreams, and Delicatessen is a comedy about cannibalism. Both sound very intriguing in the own right, but the opportunity to see his visuals on display it worth the visit as well.
As for the doggie fart line, I thought it just represents the absurdity of these people. Was it weird? Hell yeah. Didn't it take me out of the movie? Not really but I could have done without it too.
There's a difference between using an actress well and an actor playing against type. Jim Carrey's character in Eternal Sunshine was a reclusive, shy guy. Tautou was just muted. She wasn't sad really - or at least never showed sadness - she just appeared blank. Same with Manech. Maybe the whole insomnia conclusion was just a way Jeunet was trying to avoid having Manech actually act? That way he could just show no emotion whatsoever and it would be a part of the storyline.
There were things that you've pointed out that I also liked about the film... the MMM carvings and the "if this happens, then..." that Mathilde would say to herself (mostly because I used to do this all the time when playing sports, for instance "If I make this basket, I will become super rich and waste my days watching movies").
And the visual storytelling and layouts were very compelling. As much as I think he overdid the flashbacks and overlays, etc. I think used more sparingly (or just better used) they could have really added to the film. Instead, Jeunet got caught up messing around with the storylines and really couldn't string together thoughts that comprised an actual movie. They're snippets of different movies. Honestly, the experience was like dealing with a kid whose got ADD.
It's not that I wanted Jeunet to create an epic (although his running time almost insinuates that's exactly what he was aiming for). What I wanted was compelling characters, human struggles and a plotline that heads somewhere.
A Very Long Engagement only does that in bits. Here and there we push the story along. Otherwise, all we're doing is looking at pretty pictures... and none of them hold a candle to a Wong Kar-Wai or Terrence Malick film.
I am hoping that a 'wow' film is coming up soon. I'll try to pick one next that I think has the best chance. Again like I said, I'll soon post a calendar on the main page (tonight or tomorrow probably) and we'll go from there. For me, this week I'm watching the first two Bourne films and listening to all the hype heading into Friday's Ultimatum. Sounds kickass thus far, but I'll fit in another Screening Room watch this week as well. Probably on Saturday.
Speaking of... before I post the calendar I wanted to ask you which Wong Kar Wai films you've seen? I'd like to add one of his movies to the Screening Sessions.
I've already seen In the Mood for Love, 2046 and Chungking Express but if you haven't seen either Days of Being Wild or Happy Together, I'd like to get around to those sometime soon.
Haven't seen any Wong Kar Wai films. I wasn't really aware of him until I kept hearing about his upcoming English language debut "My Blueberry Nights," which I will certainly see because Natalie Portman looks so damn hot. So go nuts!
No Wong Kar-Wai? Damn man, I've gotta get you involved in Kar-Wai. He's amazing. Definitely one of my top 5 directors working today. Unfortunately, I've heard mixed things about My Blueberry Nights with Natalie Portman and Jude Law (I'll still see it of course) but you need to watch some of his other movies. In the Mood for Love is a masterpiece and Chungking Express isn't far behind that. Plus, 2046 is pretty incredible in its own right and twists the In the Mood for Love storyline into a quasi-science fiction film. Very interesting stuff. I'm gushing. You need to see these films. Actually, just talking about it has me wanting to see another one desperately, so I'm throwing Days of Being Wild in before Falling Down and pushing everything back a week. Rent it!
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