From director Jean-Pierre Jeunet – director of AMELIE and CITY OF LOST CHILDREN – comes this epic WWI-set romance. Mathilde (Audrey Tautou, DIRTY PRETTY THINGS) and Manech (Gaspard Ulliel, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) have been together since their birth. Manech is called off to fight in WWI.
In the beginning of the film, we witness an episode that leads to Manech and four other men being charged with self-mutilation to get out of service, which is punishable as treason. Manech and the men are sentenced to a suicide mission in no man’s land between a French and German trench. The men are considered dead, however Mathilde feels for certain that her love is still alive. Despite suffering from polio, Mathilde sets out to find Manech.
Like Jeunet’s other films, this movie is filled with whimsy, which helps the film from never spiraling off into sappy melodrama. This same story could have easily become maudlin crap in a less skilled filmmaker’s hands. Tautou is mesmerizing as usual and carries the emotional weight of the film.
The WWI battle scenes are stark and brutal. One truly feels what it might have been like to fight in those conditions, which easily builds sympathy for anyone who would injure themselves on purpose to get out of the trenches. The story is solid, but it’s the visuals that truly rise to the top. Jeunet contrasts the bloody war scenes with grand images of period cities, countrysides and ocean views. The film displays how visual effects can add to a story not take it over.
Another surprise performance in the film comes from Jodie Foster as Elodie Gordes, one of the condemned men’s wives. If she weren’t an American movie star, you wouldn’t even know that she isn’t a native French speaker. In the end, Jeunet succeeds in presenting a grand romance that has heart, but never coy. It’s quite enchanting.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
