A Very Long Engagment

1699 Words7 Pages
The power and frailty of memory drives both Jeunet’s plot and his own artistic act, discuss. Memory establishes Jeunet’s plot as the plot is built upon the validity of memories and how they are able to enhance and distort history. Jeunet’s plot is based around Mathilde recovering the truth about whether her lover, Manech is alive and she is led down many paths by character’s memories of the war and war documents which not all are truthful. Jeunet’s own artistic act is prominent throughout and Jeunet is able to incorporate different film conventions for the spectator to be engrossed in the film under his own artistic act. Jeunet is influenced from the ‘cinéma du look’ and the ‘French New Wave’ film conventions to the more recent, ‘cinéma de banlieue’ which are able to be brought to light because of the theme of memory and its distortion. Jeunet amalgamates three heterogeneous areas of memory in ‘A Very Long Engagement’ (Jeunet 2004) to establish and evaluate the power and frailty of memory “Memory plays a complex role in Jeunet’s film, which enacts both its repression and its return” (Ezra 15). Firstly to be discussed is artistic memory, memories and emotions of the spectator are rendered because of an association with another memory from other sources, e.g. film and art. Secondly to be evaluated is personal memory which is autobiographical memory and finally, historical memory, memories that are considered facts in history. The influence of ‘cinéma du look’ in ‘A Very Long Engagement’ permits the spectators to subconsciously trigger their own artistic memory. This principal memory tool is able to drive Jeunet’s plot. “Jeunet’s frame of reference ... is constructed from a wide range of cultural influences” (Ezra 8). This is seen in Jeunet’s over indulgent use of colour in separating the dual footage, the browns and oranges of Mathilde’s life without war and
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