Not taken in order, I suppose I'll begin with "The Thin Red Line." This, of course, is Terence Malick's 1998 masterpiece, a definitive meditation on the futility of war, and one of the great cinematic achievements of the 1990s. But it's reflective of similar themes that run recurrent in Jeunet's film: a staunch, if understated antiwar position; a visual sensibility that calls attention to the beauty and destructiveness of war; and an ambivalent attitude towards those who choose, or at least who are reluctant to fight.
To wit: in Engagement, a young man named Manech (Gaspard Ulliel) is sent off to war where he witnesses atrocities that exist in a world far beyond his limited teenage existence. Along with several other frightened or dissatisfied soldiers, Manech puts himself in a position to be injured in the hopes that he will be discharged and sent home. Instead, his superiors charge him with treason and sentence him and four other men to die in no-man's land. After an explosive skirmish, Manech disappears without a trace, leaving his beloved Mathilde (Audrey Tatou) without a fiancee. Superstitious and unrelenting in her belief that Manech is still alive, Mathilde sets out to discover the truth for herself, and with any hope, find her lost love.
What's remarkable about Jeunet's film in the same way as the Malick picture is his sympathetic detachment from the characters; he believes in the futility of war, but reserves judgement for the soldiers' behavior, whether their intentions are noble or not. At the same time, he doesn't hesitate to paint a complete portrait of the experience, and demonstrates how the soldiers were often undermined by the efforts of their own superiors. Our frustration and sympathy grows with each passing betrayal, not because Jeunet creates a melodramatic atmosphereof duplicity, but because out hopes, like those of the soldiers, are only for the best of outcomes.
"Days of Heaven" should probably follow, if for no other reason than Malick's authorship of the two dramatically different pictures, but the "looks like old photos" comment applies here as well. Jeunet is one of the international film community's very best directors, and his career has been distinguished by movies that were as unique in form as in their content. Here, like in his partially successful Hollywood effort Alien: Resurrection, he makes a step towards the mainstream with subject matter that more reflects popular interest than his own idiosyncratic impulses, but manages to claim definitive ownership by virtue of the visual and thematic approach he takes.
Take, for example, just one shot from the film's many flashbacks, in which the narrator recalls a farmer's reception of the news he would be shipped off to war; as he plods towards the camera in a horse-pulled cart, the golden fields of wheat ripple on either side of him in perfect synchronicity as if taking aim at the man. How this effect was achieved, I may never know, but it's but one of countless startlingly beautiful images. At the same time, Jeunet and director of photography Bruno Delbonnel cast each image in a light that does in fact recall early photographs, with amber hues curling up the edges of each frame as the characters soldier on through their wearying existences.The combination of this sort of visual continuity and Jeunet's remarkable ability to create iconic imagery with the camera creates a dizzying, immersive experience for the viewer, and counts as the most tragically beautiful film since Malick's Thin Red Line.
"Wood hand," in fact, refers to a character in the film with an actual wooden appendage, but it's a signifier of Jeunet's ability to work whimsy into even the most dramatic of stories. These ideas are ones that have shown up in every one of his movies – Amelie is all about them – but would under any other circumstances feel out of place in a war drama. Here, however, Jeunet interlaces them so effortlessly we are charmed by them as a necessary distraction from the gravitas of Engagement's material; their inclusion feels not only desired but necessary, and allows the film to transcend genre boundaries and engage, and at times, even enchant its audience.
A Very Long Engagement is Jeunet's best film – if not necessarily by far – because it crosses the barrier between his world and invades ours; where his other movies felt self-contained and just a little bit indulgent, this one seems like it was made for us just as much as for himself. But his achievement is that he made a movie that of course can be discussed exhaustively by film scholars and fans of his milieu, but doesn't necessarily need to be. But whether or not my prose did the film's merits justice, or sufficiently sold it to folks who would sooner shoot off their hand than watch a film in French, there are only four words that I would have precede A Very Long Engagement in future discussions: "And the winner is..."
4 out of 5 Stars, 8/10 Score