[ThisWeek] A Very Long Engagement at the Kenworthy

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-

A Very Long Engagement (R)
Friday, April 22
7:00 PM
Saturday & Sunday, April 23 & 24
4:15/7:00 PM
$5 adults
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies
(See Review below)
* * *

Next week at the Kenworthy-

Born into Brothels (NR)
Friday, April 29
7:00 PM
Saturday & Sunday, April 30 & May 1
4:45/7:00 PM
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Next Month at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre . . .

The Sea Inside (PG13)
May 6 ay 7PM
May 7 - 8 at 4:15 and 7PM

Lost Embrace (NR)
May 13 at 7PM
May 14 - 15 at 4:30 and 7PM

Rendezvous Music Showcase
May 21 at 7PM
$5 admission

Hard Goodbyes my Father (NR)
May 22 at 4:30 and 7PM

Million Dollar Baby (PG13)
May 27 at 7PM
May 28 - 29 at 4 and 7PM

Regular Movie prices:  $5 adults, $2 children 12 and younger.
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies

Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
For more information, call 208-882-4127 or visit http://www.kenworthy.org
* * *
This week¹s review-

A Very Long Engagement

Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet; written by Mr. Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant,
based on the novel by Sébastien Japrisot

Presented in the French language with English subtitles

Rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). The film
features extremely violent war scenes, such as graphic war violence of
bodies being blown to bits and also brief nudity.
Running time:  2 hours, 13 minutes

As reviewed by Manohla Dargis writing for the New York Times

Set during World War I and directed by the cult favorite Jean-Pierre Jeunet,
the film follows the adventures of a young woman, Mathilde, played by Audrey
Tautou, who holds fast to the hope that her fiancé will return home. Even
when death seems to do them part, the cord of her love remains unbroken.

Like the book on which it's based, by the crime novelist and screenwriter
Jean-Baptiste Rossi, ''A Very Long Engagement'' opens with five French
soldiers snaking through muddy trenches. It's January 1917, three years into
the Great War, and the men are marching toward death, having been
court-martialed for self-mutilation. Among the five is Mathilde's young
fiancé, Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), a gentle creature called Cornflower, who
had been reduced to a catatonic state after an explosion covered him in
another man's blood and viscera. It's a scene that Japrisot captures quickly
and without embellishment: ''He'd spat out the horror and shrieked his head
off.'' Soon after he stops screaming, Manech is tossed onto the battlefield
and left for dead. 

Several years later, after the trenches of Europe have been turned into
manicured graveyards, Mathilde learns that Manech may still be alive.
Springing into action, somewhat cumbersomely since polio has left her with
one lame leg, she begins searching for her fiancé, poring through letters
and over clues, and tracking down anyone who can explain what happened and
why. With the pluck of Nancy Drew and the cunning of Hercule Poirot, she
digs into the histories of the other condemned men, inquiries that take her
from her bucolic oceanside home all the way to bustling Paris. Slowly,
slowly, very slowly, Mathilde peels away the layers of memory and
misdirection provided by the four men's friends and lovers, eventually
uncovering some kind of truth.

After it was published in France in 1991, Japrisot's novel became a best
seller, and it's easy to see why. There's the story itself, of course,
richly detailed and engaging, but there is also the war, which robbed France
of millions of men but, unlike the world calamity that followed, not its
honor. Now, Mr. Jeunet has scored a hit in his country with his bright
adaptation. 

As reviewed by Ruthe Stein writing for the San Francisco Chronicle

"A Very Long Engagement'' hauntingly tells a story older than the Odyssey
and as timely as today's body count from Iraq. Soldiers go off to fight
wars, and loved ones helplessly await their return.

French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet demonstrated his imagination and eye for
the visual in "Amelie'' and "The City of Lost Children.'' But they only hint
at the miracles he works in "A Very Long Engagement,'' alternating color
with black and white and sepia tones to set contrasting moods and combining
a heartbreaking romance and a noir-like mystery with a classic war story.
It's a high-wire act to keep all the elements balanced, but Jeunet never
falters. He's made not only the best foreign film of the year but also one
of the best to come out in any language, English included.

Like "Saving Private Ryan,'' "Engagement'' immediately plunges into battle,
re-creating the front lines of World War I, as dirty and dispiriting a war
as they come. Recruits, looking barely old enough to shave, huddle in rain-
soaked trenches, unable to see what's coming. The mud is made palpable by
the plopping sound under their boots. Platoon mates are blown up, and
survivors are reduced to using their dead bodies as shields.

These horrific sights are offset by the lushness of the French countryside
where Mathilde ("Amelie's'' Audrey Tautou, clearly Jeunet's muse) hopes
against hope that she will see her soldier-boyfriend, Manech (Gaspard
Ulliel), again. Playing against type, the usually vivacious Tautou adeptly
captures Mathilde's depressive state, turning in a quietly powerful
performance worthy of Oscar consideration.

Unlike most mysteries, this one resolves itself in ways that would be
difficult to anticipate. "A Very Long Engagement'' leaves you feeling
stuffed but satisfied, like after a very long, tasty meal.

As reviewed by Philip French writing for The Observer (UK)

Unlike the Second World War, during which the British and American film
industries created the war movie as an entertainment genre, the First World
War, or as some of us persist in calling it, the Great War, has
traditionally been a sombre affair in the cinema.

The few exceptions are pictures about aerial combat. The two most memorable
recent films on the 1914-18 conflict are Stanley Kubrick's ³Paths of Glory,²
about the callous execution of French soldiers 'to encourage the others',
and Bertrand Tavernier's ³La Vie et rien d'autre,² in which a French widow
confronts bureaucratic obfuscation and official hypocrisy as she searches
for evidence of her husband's death on the Western Front.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet, a film-maker best known hitherto for whimsy and surreal
tricksiness, has combined elements of both these films in his outstanding ³A
Very Long Engagement.²

It's a remarkably rich movie, full of detail, and it grips and entertains
like a detective story while never losing sight of the horrors of war. The
sequences of artillery bombardment of the trenches and of soldiers being
mown down by machine-gun fire are among the most terrifying and viscerally
affecting ever filmed.

Jeunet, his cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel and his production designer
Aline Bonetto have created distinct visual styles for the various areas and
time periods. Brittany and the French countryside are bathed in an idyllic
golden glow, all primary colours have been virtually drained from the
trenches and battlefields, while the bustling streets of Paris, most notably
the re-creations of the vegetable market at Les Halles and the traffic in
the Place de l'Opéra, are given the look of tinted postcards. Altogether a
very satisfying movie.

Film reviews researched and edited by Peter Haggart
* * *
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org

To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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