A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT (Un long dimanche de fiançailles) is a movie cowritten and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie) in 2004. This film earned five French Academy awards and numerous international awards in 2004 and 2005.
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During WWI, five French soldiers are sentenced to death by a court martial for having wounded themselves. Among them, there is Manech, the young fiancé of Mathilde. In 1920, Mathilde still doesn't accept the fact that Manech is dead. She hires a private detective to find the soldiers who were present during the last hours of his fiancé and soon discovers that no one has actually seen Manech killed. She is convinced now that Manech is still alive and starts to question the relatives of the convicted soldiers.
The review of this Movie prepared by Daniel Staebler
Mathilde (Tautou), born on Jan. 1, 1900, is lame with polio at an early age. She falls in love with childhood friend Manech (Ulliel), who gets carted off to the front in 1917 and sentenced to be executed with four other potential deserters for self-mutilation (in Manech's case it was an accident). The five men disappear in no-man's-land between French and German lines and are presumed dead. Convinced that her beloved is still alive, Mathilde goes on a search for him in 1920. She hires crack private detective Germain Pire (Holgado), follows the prostitute Tina Lombardi (Marion Cotillard) who is also searching for her beloved among the missing men and incidentally killing the various officers she holds responsible for his possible death, meets a woman named Elodie Gordes (Foster) who has her own secret relating to one of the five, and slowly unravels a complicated mystery involving purloined orders, switched identities, and chance. Writer-director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie, City of Lost Children) created a 2004 movie that combines mystery, war, and romance.
The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus