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Review

Director Jeunet (Amélie, Delicatessen) has crafted a cinematic jewel in A Very Long Engagement, using to maximum effect technical elements of the film medium, an accomplished and gifted cast, a well-crafted script peopled with memorable characters and his own sense of whimsy to lighten without diminishing a story exposing the darkest aspects of the human psyche while celebrating the most enlightened facets of the human spirit. Tautou is mesmerizing as Mathilde, a young woman who refuses to accept the loss of her fiancé, Manech — her heart's companion since childhood — to the hellish trench warfare of WWI. It seems certain that Manech has perished, abandoned with four others to the no-man's land between French and German trenches for the crime of self-mutilation (they shoot themselves in the hopes of being sent home from the insanity of war). But Mathilde doesn't buy it, even after visiting a grave with his name on the marker, and undertakes an investigation that lasts for years, never faltering in her conviction and uncovering a convoluted nest of secrets along the way. This is most magnificent filmmaking, a superb amalgam of fantasy and grim reality imbued with the magical thinking of childhood. The two-plus hours pass like a dream, and the dream stays with you for quite a while. (French with English subtitles)

 -- Ann Yarabinee