Watching

Watched A Very Long Engagement this afternoon :)

Good? Oh, GOOD.

Pretty long-winded though, but it was all good in the end. Ending wasn't...happy.

And since Chin Lei asked me how it was - I'll tell you how it is!

One of the quirkiest movies I've watched this year - Hitchhiker's was last year, or this would have been dethroned - and yet it's sad and funny and dark at the same time. It's not random - definitely - but the little things make it all the more quirky, like a hydrogen zeppelin in a makeshift hospital, or the postman who keeps insisting on arriving "in style", or the dog that keeps farting for some unexplained reason. The opening scene sets the mood for the whole movie - trenches on the front, with shells and rain and mud everywhere. And then the narrator's voice - Audrey Tautou's - introducing the five men that we will meet during the film.

Five men condemned for self-mutilation, and all because they wanted to get home early and escape the war.

Among the five men is, of course, Mathilde's (Tautou) fiance, known as the Cornflower in the army, but she calls him Manech (Ulliel). Losing his mind on the front, and finally cracked after his friend was blown into pieces right beside by a shell. Deliberately got his hand injured to be sent home, but some higher officer decided that the five guilty of self-mutilation would be thrown into no-man's-land and left to fend for themselves against enemy fire (and even against their own army). One weird thing - all the five men were shot in the hand. Makes things a bit more interesting.

Mathilde does all she can to trace Manech, because there isn't an official record saying that he died. Goes to Paris, finds a PI, sends letters, meets the wives and friends of the men who were condemned. Along the way we get to see flashbacks, back to the time when Mathilde and Manech first met when she was 9, he 10. Really sweet, because he was the one who tried to talk to her first, and she ignored him until she wondered what it was like to look from a lighthouse. Manech - his father was the lighthouse keeper - said that he would carry her himself to the top because she was lame (polio, takda cure for that at the time). He did just that, and yep, they grew up together, fell in love, decided to get married, and then Manech was called up to serve in the army.

Lots of twists and turns; I got pretty confused in the middle, but didn't lose touch of the story. Jodie Foster makes an appearance too - I was surprised what - and that Tina Lombardi character is one femme fatale. (Not someone you want to anger, boys.)

I cried. Am I supposed to be proud or sad or what? =/

Loved Tautou's character.

Ulliel's character, on the other hand, made me wanna cry. He looks lost and confused from the beginning, like a little child in some place he should never have gone to. (Yes, YCL, he was VERY good-looking here. That smile!) He doesn't even turn up much during the movie - mostly in flashbacks - but he is definitely one of the main characters here. And to watch Mathilde's attempts to locate him - I didn't know whether to keep on hoping like her, or to accept that Manech was gone for good.

The ending -

SPOILERS HERE! (Disclaimer: I will not be held responsible for ruining the plot for people who have not watched, and intend to watch, this film.)

The ending though, was bittersweet. Manech was alive, but his memory was gone. He had to be taught to read and write, even. Was adopted by a widow who had lost her son in the war - he stole the son's identity to prevent himself from being caught for deserting. Later the widow died, and I think he was taken in by a church. The child-like look he had in the beginning becomes more pronounced here; he's like a clean slate, with no recollection of what happened.

Mathilde goes to meet him, and he can't recognise her at all. The first thing he asks her - after all those years of searching and heartache - was this: "Does your leg hurt when you walk?"

Simple question. But well...that was the first thing he said to her too, when they met as children.

She doesn't cry, doesn't say anything, just sits and watches him, smiling. Film ends there, with the narrator repeating the same line, softer and softer - "She looks at him, she looks at him..."

After all, what more did she have to say to him? He obviously remembered nothing before the war, and to tell him what she had gone through to find him wouldn't have any effect for him.

Late. College tomorrow.