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<TITLE>A Very Long Engagement at the Kenworthy</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Verdana"><B>This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-<BR>
</B><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#800000"><FONT SIZE="5"><B>A Very Long Engagement</B> (R)<BR>
</FONT></FONT><B>Friday, April 22<BR>
7:00 PM<BR>
Saturday & Sunday, April 23 & 24<BR>
4:15/7:00 PM<BR>
</B>$5 adults<BR>
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies<BR>
<B>(See Review below)<BR>
</B>* * *<BR>
<BR>
<B>Next week at the Kenworthy-<BR>
</B><BR>
<B>Born into Brothels</B> (NR)<BR>
Friday, April 29<BR>
7:00 PM<BR>
Saturday & Sunday, April 30 & May 1<BR>
4:45/7:00 PM<BR>
* * *<BR>
<BR>
<B>Next Month at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre . . .<BR>
</B><BR>
<B>The Sea Inside (PG13)<BR>
</B>May 6 ay 7PM<BR>
May 7 - 8 at 4:15 and 7PM<BR>
<BR>
<B>Lost Embrace (NR)<BR>
</B>May 13 at 7PM<BR>
May 14 - 15 at 4:30 and 7PM<BR>
<BR>
<B>Rendezvous Music Showcase<BR>
</B>May 21 at 7PM<BR>
$5 admission<BR>
<BR>
<B>Hard Goodbyes my Father (NR)<BR>
</B>May 22 at 4:30 and 7PM<BR>
<BR>
<B>Million Dollar Baby (PG13)<BR>
</B>May 27 at 7PM<BR>
May 28 - 29 at 4 and 7PM<BR>
<BR>
<B>Regular Movie prices</B>: $5 adults, $2 children 12 and younger. <BR>
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies<BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Courier"><TT><BR>
</TT></FONT><FONT FACE="Verdana">Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre<BR>
508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho<BR>
For more information, call 208-882-4127 or visit http://www.kenworthy.org<BR>
* * *<BR>
<B>This week’s review-<BR>
<BR>
</B><FONT COLOR="#800000"><H2>A Very Long Engagement<BR>
</H2></FONT><BR>
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet; written by Mr. Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, based on the novel by Sébastien Japrisot<BR>
<BR>
Presented in the French language with English subtitles<BR>
<BR>
<B>Rated R</B> (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.<BR>
Running time: 2 hours, 13 minutes<BR>
<BR>
<B><I><U>As reviewed by Manohla Dargis writing for the New York Times<BR>
</U></I></B><BR>
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. <BR>
<BR>
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. <BR>
<BR>
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. <BR>
<BR>
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. <BR>
<BR>
<B><I><U>As reviewed by Ruthe Stein writing for the San Francisco Chronicle<BR>
</U></I></B><BR>
"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. <BR>
<BR>
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. <BR>
<BR>
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. <BR>
<BR>
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. <BR>
<BR>
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. <BR>
<BR>
<B><I><U>As reviewed by Philip French writing for The Observer (UK)<BR>
</U></I></B><BR>
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. <BR>
<BR>
The few exceptions are pictures about aerial combat. The two most memorable recent films on the 1914-18 conflict are Stanley Kubrick's “Paths of Glory,” about the callous execution of French soldiers 'to encourage the others', and Bertrand Tavernier's “La Vie et rien d'autre,” 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. <BR>
<BR>
Jean-Pierre Jeunet, a film-maker best known hitherto for whimsy and surreal tricksiness, has combined elements of both these films in his outstanding “A Very Long Engagement.”<BR>
<BR>
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. <BR>
<BR>
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.<BR>
<BR>
<I>Film reviews researched and edited by Peter Haggart<BR>
</I><B>* * *<BR>
</B>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<BR>
PAMELA PALMER, <B>Volunteer<BR>
</B><FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><U>Mailto:ppalmer@moscow.com<BR>
</U></FONT>Film and Events Committee <BR>
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre<BR>
<BR>
<FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><U>http://www.kenworthy.org<BR>
<BR>
</U></FONT>To speak with a KPAC staff member, <BR>
call (208) 882-4127<BR>
<FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><U>Mailto:kpac@moscow.com<BR>
</U></FONT>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ <BR>
<BR>
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