UN LONG DIMACHE DE FIANÇAILLES (2004) **** It's a great, great love story, though the lovers are very rarely together onscreen, and even then in memory. It's a great (anti-) war movie, though the war is front and center and absolutely in your face it's never more than peripheral. Something absurd, something ephemeral, something contagious, something to be overcome. It's a mystery, but without any clues that the greatest detective could recognize. It's a film about spirit and obsession, values and the certainty of stubbornness. At least that. It's a very spiritual film; nihilists will find plenty that's recognizable but teleologists will see things cannot be seen. Jean-Pierre Jeunet plays a mixed and increasingly bizarre hand of cards brilliantly-incessant flashbacks are illustrative and clarify, but never illuminate more than half a pace of road ahead. Audrey Tautau is an actress with a secret, and I doubt even she knows what it is. She communicates fluently without moving her lips, moving a muscle, allowing any flicker of doubt or recognition to affect her countenance, without the aid of lighting. You may wonder, if I did, briefly, if it might have something to do with how perfectly matched are the hue of her hair and eyes, that they might somehow allow some glance into the soul itself as in bas relief, but it can't be that simple. It doesn't hurt that she's surrounded by great performances-everyone in the cast, but I'd feel like an idiot if I didn't at least mention Marion Cotillard and Gaspard Ulliel. This film has an immortal, superhuman quality that is more of a depth than passion, a passion so deep as to transcend either definition or the passion itself, a freight train bound for the eternal, but one that could never stop there or anywhere else. Enjoy the passing scenery. As a High Priestess of Existentialism once cried, with her own passion at once courageous and desperate, "get it while you can!" It's the kind of movie that will stay with you for some time, and if you're ever lucky enough to get at what's driving Audrey's character, you've scored forever.
back to Brilliant Observations on 2525 Films page, or Index
go back home, or send me email
Reviews won't do it any more! I need sustained brilliance! I want to buy your exciting new terrorist novel!
I've already read both of your novels. Thank you, they're amazing. Now I want to check out your weekly blog on everything