A Very Long Engagement: The Review

A Very Long Engagement indeed.
Ok. This movie was about a billion years long. Which is very taxing when you have ADD. And even more taxing when you can't lose yourself in the special effects and shiny costumes because there's actually a plot to follow and characters to watch develop. Yes folks, you can definitely tell this movie didn't come out of Hollywood.
Basically, the story is as follows: Five men from the French Army during the First World War are exiled to No Man's Land (that's the bit between the French and German trenches, for those of you that didn't know - i.e. where people die) after being accused of self-mutilation in an attempt to get out of the war. Ya dig? They were supposed to be killed, but this nice dude decided to give them a "chance" to make it in No Man's Land. Anywho, one of these men, Manech, is this gimpy girl's fiance. And they're in love. When Manech doesn't come back from the war, Matilde (his fiance, the gimp) doesn't want to accept that he might be dead, and begins a search for him. During her search, you learn a lot about Manech and Matilde's romance before he went off to war, you learn about Matilde's gimp, you learn about the other four men too, and their lives before the war, etc. All this happy pre-war stuff, and also Matilde's life in a little picturesque French village with her uncle and aunt, is contrasted with gruesome war images, where trench life is, sadly, very realistically depicted. This war part is very akin to "Saving Private Ryan" in it's uncensored depiction of death and destruction and lost morals and so on. Wow. I'm so poetic.
Anywho, I won't give away the end, or really the middle or anything in case anyone wants to see it. The only bit that I didn't like was the annoying guy that worked there that kept coming in during the movie and walking across the front of the room. His stupid head got in the way of the subtitles now and again. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that because the movie is French, you have to be literate (or understand French) if you wish to follow (sorry Mota). And in the end, I didn't like how it took Matilde (the gimp) half an hour to "walk" (read: limp) to her final destination. At this point, I really had to go pee, and at the same time really wished to see the dramatic conclusion, so her gimp was PISSING ME OFF.
In any case, I think everyone should go see the movie. If nothing else, you can ignore the subtitles and make up your own dialogue. It would make for a very humorous experience.