The Rocky Mountain Collegian

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Some movies are made magical with spells and sorcery, dragons and demons. Others simply shine a lens that transforms the world so ineluctably and elegantly that the audience does not recognize it. Each frame in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film, "A Very Long Engagement," is imbued with winsome beauty and wonder. It evokes longing, loss, sweet sadness and wild exuberance. Effortlessly switching tones from somber to whimsical, Jeunet crafts an eclectic masterpiece which eclipses genre boundaries and one-dimensionality. In short, it is the best movie of last year and easily accessible at the Tivoli Theater.

Starring Audrey Tautou, who many may recognize as the charming Amelie, "A Very Long Engagement" is a French film set during and directly after World War I. Mathilde (Tautou) investigates the puzzling and tragic disappearance of her young love Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), who everyone believes to be dead. Sent off to fight the Germans, Manech was broken by the war and finally banished to no-man's land because of his attempt to win a release by means of self-mutilation. Joining four other such men, all with self-inflicted wounds, Manech was indirectly given a death sentence when forced over the top of the trench without support and few supplies.

The subsequent events become shrouded in a web of shrapnel, smoke and distorted memories, but end with a battlefield of bodies and no Manech. However, Mathilde refuses to believe him dead; she would know if he had been killed and sets out to unravel the mysterious and nefarious occurrence. Her investigation leads down winding paths, entangles her with colorful people and exposes well-kept secrets. As much a mystery as a love story, "A Very Long Engagement" is riddled with twists and turns, dead ends and breakthroughs, in search of a happy ending that seems beyond hope.

Jeunet's theme of hope cascades throughout this movie; it is a tribute to its power which becomes the only force animating Mathilde after the news of Manech's disappearance. She is so steeped in it that the darkest news cannot pierce her resolve. Tautou, one of the world's premier actresses, gives her usual complete and nuanced performance. Stricken by polio, her character is a quiet introvert, but sparkles with imagination, determination and cleverness. She is a female Sherlock Holmes, but without the cold arrogance; her puzzle's solution holds in its balance the most precious prize in the world, and she sets out to reach it resourcefully and lovingly. Gently ridiculed by her comical and caring aunt and uncle, Mathilde willfully holds on to her hope; she's the hero in a war movie who has never touched a gun, preferring the tuba as an outlet for anger, sadness and fear.

Another face of this movie is its stark and uncompromising critique of war. It gracefully and devastatingly fades from the gentle French countryside to festering trenches, whizzing with bullets and stinking of fear. It is such an effective critique because it does not use the simplistic and tired convention of demonizing the enemy and valorizing "our side." "A Very Long Engagement" underscores the ugliness and painfulness of war for all parties; the puffed-up French commanders are the true villains of the movie, and everyone else their victims.

This movie is not to be missed. Each scene is shot unforgettably from the barbed-wire-choked trench to the bucolic countryside. Filled with interesting characters and side plots that never detract from the main action, "A Very Long Engagement" brims with good humor, intrigue, true love and intense action. Its memory will linger with you as all beautiful and fine art will.

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