Mud Songs

A Very Long Engagement tells the story of a young woman (Audrey Tautou from Amelie playing a slightly less quirky version of the same child-like character) trying to track down her boyfriend who was supposedly killed in the trenches in World War I. Just about all the shots — from the warm, picturesque rural scenes to the cold, brutally realistic battle scenes — are composed like paintings, so much so that the subtitles are distracting at times. That’s one minor criticism. The other is the storyline which does meander a bit (some tighter editing might have improved the pacing). But the performances are great and there’s magic and fantasy and something beautiful in every scene, so who cares? It’s an excellent film.

From DVDTalk review of All Quiet on the Western Front: This film is “the granddaddy of anti-war epics. Based on the celebrated autobiographical novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the 1930 film about German soldiers in World War I presents a searing indictment of war that still manages to rattle viewers despite the passage of time and some rather dated elements.”