All's Fair in Love and Trench Warfare

Film: Un Long Dimanche de Fiancailles (A Very Long Engagement)
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television.

Most films about World War I are not American films. That’s simply a fact. I think it’s because the U.S. was involved in World War I for only about a year or 18 months before it ended, while all of Europe (virtually) was embroiled in that conflict for years before we got there. For the Americans, it’s still an important war, but one in which our involvement essentially pushed one side over the other. Had we joined the battle in 1915, our perspective on the war might well be different.

Un Long Dimanche de Fiancailles (A Very Long Engagement) is, then, a French film concerning World War I and the aftermath in the life of several people around France. We deal with terribly cruel punishments of men who desire to escape life on the front and the pursuit of these men after the war by their loved ones, who cannot determine if they are alive or dead. In particular, we follow Mathilde (Audrey Tautou) and her pursuit of Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), who she believes to be still alive despite all evidence to the contrary.

As the film progresses, we get pieces of insight into what happened on the front. The five men were convicted of self-mutilation (four are actually guilty), a court-martial offense and tantamount to treason. Rather than simply lining the men up against a wall and shooting them, there is a much more horrifying and terrible punishment in mind. The five men are taken out into the no-man’s land between the French and German lines at a place called Bingo Crepuscule. They are left there with no food and no weapons or ammunition, with the assumption that they will be killed during one bombing or attack or another. Manech, of course, is one of the five.

Mathilde feels such a strong connection with Manech, though, that she is convinced that he cannot be dead. She begins to investigate what happened at Bingo Crepuscule. She starts finding out people who were there who survived the battles. Bit by bit and piece by piece she begins to discover what happened, creating a narrative of those days with the men standing out in no-man’s land as well as the days that followed. She is assisted on her journey by private detective Germain Pire (Ticky Holgado) and survivor Celestin Poux (Albert Dupontel), who met the men and took care of them before their sentence.

She also discovers several of the women who have waited in vain for their men to return. Elodie Gordes (Jodie Foster, who speaks pretty good French) who lost both her husband in later days and her lover at Bingo Crepuscule. She also find Tina Lombardi (Marion Cotillard), a prostitute whose man was killed at Bingo, which leads her on a vendetta to kill those who sentenced him to death. Through all of this, Mathilde is supported by her aunt Benedicte (Chantal Neuwirth) and uncle Sylvain (Jeunet regular Dominique Pinon).

Un Long Dimanche de Fiancailles has all of the feelings of a typical Jeunet film with small touches of magical realism, which seems to be Jeunet’s favorite place to be. It does not have the same visual touches that a film like Amelie does, but these aspects are present in the script. Mathilde, for instance, has a series of superstitious tics that appear throughout the film as she attempts to reassure herself that Manech is still alive. She will, for instance, tell herself that if she can do something in a certain time or a certain way successfully, Manech will still be fine, almost like a child attempting to walk home from school without stepping on a sidewalk crack. And her mood and the path of the investigation seems to follow her success or failure on these little superstitious touchstones.

This is a hard film to dislike. Jeunet is one of the most expressive directors currently working. His films are visually gorgeous, and this one is no different. Even without the story going on, Un Long Dimanche de Fiancailles is beautifully filmed with gorgeous landscapes almost caressed by the camera. The war scenes have a stark beauty to them, as terrible and violent as many of them are. And this is Jeunet’s genius from my perspective. Even his war scenes—several of which are truly terrible to behold—are still riveting and demand being viewed.

Of course, other Jeunet trademarks are here as well. He has a passion for damaged characters. In this case, Mathilde’s frequent lapses into fantasy (if I can peel this apple without breaking the peel, Manech is still alive) are only part of her story; stricken by polio at five, she walks with difficulty, frequently using her evident physical limitations to elicit sympathy from others.

But is it good? It is. It’s perhaps too much to take in at times, and more complex than it needs to be. The story is lovely, though, and contains a marvelous ending that is both joyous and tragic, and therefore virtually perfect for a film dealing with the tragedy and terror of war.

Why to watch Un Long Dimanche de Fiancailles: Jeunet is a director worth watching.
Why not to watch: It’s not always easy to follow.

What's for Dinner?

Films: Babettes Gaestebud (Babette’s Feast), Delicatessen
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library (Babette), DVD from Davenport Public Library through interlibrary loan (Delicatessen), projected on big screen.

There’s something special about food. Food connects with us in a way that other things cannot. We will do things for food that we will not do for other things, and food can motivate us to do things in ways that perhaps only love can duplicate. Food is a kind of love, after all. It’s no wonder to me that America has become the land of the tubby—there’s food everywhere, and we’re programmed to love eating it.


Babette’s Feast, or in the original Danish, Babettes Gaestebud, is a film that celebrates food in a way that few others do. In fact, perhaps only Juzo Itami’s Tampopo takes such a specific and loving approach to gustatory delights. The two films make a beautiful counterpoint to each other. The one is about one special, perfect meal while the other is about the joys of food in everyday life, and how we react to food as a part of our life. Despite this, Tampopo will have to wait here—I’m saving it for a special day in a few months.

Regardless, Babette’s Feast takes place mainly around the time during and after the French Revolution. It concerns itself with a pair of sisters, Filippa (Bodil Kjer) and Martine (Birgitte Federspiel). They are the daughters of a stern minister (Pouel Kern) living on the sparse and rugged Jutland coast. As befits the place they live, their world is austere, and their religion is even more so. And they are dedicated to their religion. Both women gave up their chances for marriage and happiness early on—one was wooed by a soldier (Gudmar Wivesson) and the other by a singer from Paris (Jean-Philippe Lafont). Both stayed with their father and the cold comfort of his religion instead.

With their father gone, the two sisters have grown old, trying to continue his works, tend to the old and poor, and have seen their flock constantly dwindle to a mere handful of aged parishioners. However, one day, a woman shows up on their doorstep, sent by the Parisian singer. Displaced by the terrors in Paris, she has come as a refugee needing a place to stay. She falls on the mercy of the two sisters, asking only to help them and taking no payment. This is Babette (Stephane Audran), who acts as the caretaker for the two old Danish women.

Everything changes when Babette gets a letter from her nephew. Every year, she entered the lottery, and this year, she has won a prize of 10,000 francs. It’s enough for her to go back to Paris and live a modest life for the rest of her days. The sisters, now used to Babette’s help, good works, and frugality, are distraught at losing her.

This event dovetails with the 100th birthday of the sisters’ father, an event they plan to celebrate with those remaining parishioners who have stayed loyal to the faith. As an act of blessing, Babette asks if she can prepare the meal for the evening—a true French meal—to honor the life and works of their late father. The sisters agree reluctantly, and when the ingredients for the meal arrive—wine, quails, a live sea turtle, caviar—they are mortified. Can their own act of charity of allowing Babette this wish be turned against them in a riot of sinful delights? How can they reconcile their faith of abstaining and asceticism with the glorious foods that Babette is preparing?

And so, the movie is about the beautiful, beautiful meal that Babette makes, but it is also about so much more. It is about the beauty of charity, the joy of giving everything one has to give, about making others happy, about kindness, sacrifice, and the repayment of debts already forgiven. It is a film of surprising power and beauty. While not a tearjerker in the traditional sense of the word, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t bring a drop or two at the end completely unbidden.

And, of course, there’s all of that beautiful, beautiful food.


Delicatessen covers the other end of the food spectrum. Before I discuss it too much, I need to make a special mention of my friend Doug. Doug loves post-apocalyptic movies. In fact, should we consider this a genre in and of itself, it would be Doug’s favorite by far—he loves them as much as he loves pirate movies, which is saying a lot. Doug also is an Anglophile, which means he bears a particular enmity against the French. So, Doug, I’m now going to pull you in two directions. Delicatessen is a post-apocalyptic French film. I’ll take a moment here and allow you to stew in that particular quandary, my friend. French…and post-apocalyptic. Do you stand firm against all things French or do you give in to the joy of survival after the destruction?

So, while Doug battles it out between his heart and his brain, the rest of us can get to business here. Delicatessen is indeed a post-apocalyptic film. We aren’t really told of the events of the destruction of the world, we just see the aftermath. And it’s the kind of aftermath that only the French could dream up.

Food has become the world’s scarcest resource. In fact, grain has become so scarce that it is used as currency and no longer eaten. Instead, the most common and sought after food source is other people. Our story takes place in an apartment building above a delicatessen. The butcher Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) owns the building and runs the shop on the ground floor. His general plan of action is to hire a handyman to work around the shop. After a week or so, he kills him, butchers him, selling off the pieces to his tenants. Those who can’t pay either the rent or the meat prices need to come up with another way to make do, usually by sacrificing a member of the family to the butcher’s block.

The tenants themselves are a collection of crazies attempting to pretend their lives are normal. The frog man (Howard Vernon) eats mountains of snails and pretends to be a frog in his spare time. Aurore Interligator (Silvie Laguna) hears voices and attempts to kill herself over and over through elaborate means. Also in the apartment is Julie Clapet (Marie-Laure Dougnac), the daughter of the butcher.

Into this place comes Louison (Dominique Pinon), a former circus clown now simply looking for work. He takes the job, not knowing the fate eventually in store for him. He also falls for Julie, and she for him, which makes it something of a problem for her that the goal of the rest of the apartment building is for Louison to end up in the stew pot.

Into all of this, we throw the troglodytes, a group of people who have taken to the sewers and live underground. Hunted both as deviants and as a food source by the surface dwellers, the trogs are perhaps the most normal of the lot of strange characters in this world. Rather than hording grain as a source of wealth, they eat it, and refuse to cannibalize their own kind or others. Ultimately, it’s a reversal of the sort of thing one might expect; usually, it’s the underground dwellers who get all creepy and morlock-y.

Delicatessen is played for comedy, and it is funny all the way through. The people in the apartment building are all crazy, and the trogs themselves, while relatively sane, dress in black plastic, goggles, and rubber gloves. When Julie hires them to kidnap Louison, they give themselves code names like “Sauce Master” for the job.

This is as black as comedy gets, but it’s still comedy. Much of what happens is truly funny, but it’s a sick kind of funny, the kind that you feel a little guilty laughing at. At least at first. After all, once you’ve taken your first bite…you’ve already gone past the point of no return. The second bite goes down easier.

Why to watch Babettes Gaestebud: Joy, rapture, graciousness, charity, and beautiful, beautiful food.
Why not to watch: If you watch when you’re hungry, you’ll end up ravenous.

Why to watch Delicatessen: Sweet, succulent, tasty cannibalistic comedy.
Why not to watch: Meatloaf will never look the same again.

Is Perfection Possible?

Film: Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain (Amelie)
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library collection on laptop.
















Is it possible to love a character in a film? Or to at least love the idea of a character? I ask, and it’s a question anyone who has ever seen Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie Poulain would understand immediately, and would know immediately that I’m asking about the title character.

This film is unlike anything I’ve seen before, a creation of joy, heart, and magic unlike anything else that’s out there. It’s French, making it mildly exotic but not out of reach, deals frankly and entertainingly with sex, but also, to use the French term, has such an unmistakable joie de vivre that it is impossible not to smile and not to enjoy it.

Amelie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) is a young girl born in Paris in the early 1970s. Her father is a doctor, and is cold and distant. While little Amelie only wants a hug from her daddy, he refuses physical contact except for once a month when he gives her an examination. This physical contact excites her so much that her heart races, convincing her father that she has a heart condition. Amelie’s mother is a neurotic and is killed one day while walking out of Notre Dame cathedral when a suicide falls on her from the church roof.

Amelie eventually moves away from home and gets a job in a little café called The Two Windmills. Rather than running after romantic attachments, she is solitary, and takes pleasure in the simple things in life, like cracking the surface of a crème brulee with a teaspoon and skipping flat stones. Her neighbors and coworkers are arguably as neurotic as her mother was. The woman at the tobacco counter, for instance, is a hypochondriac; her boss is an ex horse rider in a circus; another coworker is haunted by her ex, who sits in the café and mutters into a tape recorder every time he believes another man shows interest in her; a man in her building has exceedingly brittle bones, and paints a copy of the same Renoir painting every year.

On the day Princess Diana is killed, Amelie drops the top to a bottle in her bathroom. It dislodges a tile in the wall, and when she pulls the tile away, she discovers a small box filled with little toys, a hidden treasure trove of a young boy who lived in the apartment years before. Amelie decides to track him down and return the box to him, determining that if he is touched by the gesture, she’ll devote herself to making other people happy.

The man, of course, has mixed feelings, discovering his childhood again, but reveals that he has lost contact with his daughter, who recently had a son. Rediscovering his treasures makes him realize what his life is missing, and he determines to reconnect with his family.

From this, Amelie determines to do what she can to make the lives of other people better. She fixes up the ex-boyfriend with the hypochondriac, for instance. She steals her father’s garden gnome and has her flight attendant friend take pictures of it in front of places around the world (a classic urban legend…and possibly where Travelocity got their “Roaming Gnome” idea). When she sees a young man attempt to return a missing bag to a traveler and loses a photo album in the process, she becomes enamored of the young man, in part because the album is filled with photos taken from Photomat booths and discarded by others.

Not everything Amelie does is nice. Her local grocer is a jerk, particularly to the young man who works for him. Amelie makes a key of the man’s apartment, breaks in periodically, and does things like switch his footcream for his toothpaste, and replace his light bulbs with dimmer versions.

Ultimately, the question that Amelie the character and Amelie the film ask is whether or not fulfilling the lives of other people is enough? Does she have the ability, or even the right, to make herself happy in the same way that she enriches the lives of other people? The old brittle painter compares her with a woman in his picture who looks like she is not really a part of the group—there, but not really there.

Throughout the film, it becomes evident that Amelie lives in her own dream world, a place where what she does is only for the good and where she cannot be hurt. She sometimes faces the camera and makes comments, all of which are odd and yet strangely beautiful. At the movies, for instance, she says she likes to turn around and see the faces of the people behind her watching the screen. It is a moment of beauty in a film filled with them. One of my favorite parts of the film is the fact that we are introduced to many of the characters by being told what they particularly like and dislike. The man Amelie tracks down to return the box to, for instance, makes a chicken once a week, and loves nothin more than pulling apart the carcass with his fingers and eating the hot chicken off the bone.

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain is a special film, arguably the best new-to-me film I’ve seen in more than a year. It is utterly charming, endearing, and fun, filled with sweetness and joy. It’s good enough that I’m rethinking my favorite five films of all time, and it’s damn near perfect.

Watch it. If you don’t fall madly in love with Amelie, if you don’t love this film as much as I do, consider this: there’s not something wrong with the movie or with me. There’s something wrong with you.

Why to watch Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain: It’s magical.
Why not to watch: You no longer have a pulse.