(no subject)

[rebness]

Met up with Chris in Liverpool yesterday. He works for (insert hellish telecommunications company here) at the Albert Dock on the waterfront. The Liverpool docks are, dude, the most amazing things ever. The Liverpool-New York link was established here; today, shipping from all over the world still carries cargoes to and from the port. Abraham Lincoln was a guest there, as was everyone from Herman Melville to Tennessee Williams-- a gateway linking Europe to the New World. We should also be grateful for Fred's cork Weather Map o'D00m, visible in this picture. (Did anyone else watch the weather live in the hope of seeing him fall in when hopping onto Ireland?)



I won't go into predictable rantage about the state of one of these historic buildings now, with bland wall-to-wall carpets and floors of call centres and canteens and strip-lighting, because I think that says it all.

Being a hypocrite, went to a funky bar where they charge like £5 for a glass of standard Italian wine, but where you're paying for the splendid ambience of drinking in an old dock building. Yes.

After American doppelganger wickedmanifesto recommended A Very Long Engagement to me, I determined to see it.

One of the coolest things about the regeneration of Liverpool is FACT (the meaning of the acronym escapes me right now.) This is an excellent "artsy" cinema the city has sorely lacked for years; it has a wine bar, exhibitions, world cinema screens... the height of pretension. I love it.

Anyway, it is there specifically to promote European cinema. Well, except for the part where the trailer shown before the film was for Wes Anderson's new American epic, but the thought's what counts.




The film tells the story of Mathilde (Audrey Tatou), a French girl who sees her childhood sweetheart sent off to fight the Germans during the first world war. Fiancé disappears; presumed dead. The story follows Mathilde’s attempts to learn what happened. Rashomon-like, Mathilde has to unravel the truth from various different people touched by the conflict—the soldiers, a prostitute, a young German woman, a man at a bar.

One thing that bothered me about the otherwise brilliant Saving Private Ryan was the heavy-handed gloom of the piece. I felt like there were certain points “Cry here…and here… and here, you heartless wench.” Engagement wasn’t like that. I found myself saddened at the happiest times; when the young Mathilde and her future lover run around a lighthouse; when the prostitute reads out the sad little note left for her and is struck by the irony of it.

We were also surprised to see Jodie Foster appear in the film, though avariecaita informs me that she has seen her in a French-speaking part before. Foster deserves an award for her role in this film. Understated, with an impeccable French accent and expressive eyes, she shone even amongst such a great cast.

A review I read of the film said that it proves a point—war dehumanises, people humanise once again. That’s essentially what the film was about. The man who had to rely on his wiles to survive in the trenches used them later to help Mathilde and to enjoy life at its fullest. The scarred and ugly battlefield later becomes a field of beautiful long grasses ablaze in the warmth of sunset. You were at times saddened; others laughing. Wonderful.

This film didn’t get me as immediately as Amelie, but the more I think about it, the more I appreciate what a special and intelligent film I saw last night. It seemed somewhere between the innocence and faith in human nature of Amelie and the devastation of Saving Private Ryan, which ultimately made it the most moving war film I’ve ever seen; bringing home, for Europeans, the futility and ugliness of the world wars, and why what we have now is all the more precious.

Annoyingly, A Very Long Engagement is nominated for Oscars for cinematography and art direction, but no acting plaudits or awards for Jeunet. Bloody idiot-centric event. Thankfully, it has won a slew of critics’ awards in Europe and the US.



(Very mild spoilers.)

Doppelganger, you rock. ;)