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Un long dimanche de fiançailles
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Movie
| Book
| Author
| Director
& cast
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Note: Parts of this book2movie are in French but we have put our own
English translation under the original French text. It's a very free
translation.
Book: Un long dimanche de fiançailles (1991)
Movie: Un long dimanche de fiançailles
(2004) / Translation: A very long engagement
Official movie site:
http://wwws.warnerbros.fr/movies/unlongdimanche/
Premise
movie:
" From the director and star of
"Amelie" (Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Audrey Tautou) comes a very different love story, "A Very
Long Engagement," based on the acclaimed novel by Sebastien
Japrisot. The film is set in France near the end of World War I in
the deadly trenches of the Somme, in the gilded Parisian halls of
power, and in the modest home of an indomitable provincial girl. It
tells the story of this young woman's relentless, moving and
sometimes comic search for her fiancée, who has disappeared. He is
one of five French soldiers believed to have been court-martialed
under mysterious circumstances and pushed out of an allied trench
into an almost-certain death in no-man's land. What follows is an
investigation into the arbitrary nature of secrecy, the absurdity of
war, and the enduring passion, intuition and tenacity of the human
heart."
from:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344510/plotsummary
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Premise
book:
"January 1917: five French soldiers are marched to
their own front lines where they will be tossed out into no man's
land with their hands tied behind their backs and left for the
Germans to shoot. They were, in civilian life, variously a pimp, a
mechanic, a farmer, a carpenter, and a fisherman; now they are
condemned because each had sought to leave the war by shooting
himself in the hand. Taken to a godforsaken trench nicknamed Bingo
Crépuscule, the five are reluctantly sent out into the darkness;
days later, five bodies are recovered and the families are notified,
merely, that the men died in the line of duty.August 1919: Mathilde Donnay receives a letter from a dying man. In
it, the former soldier tells her that he met her beloved fiancé, the
fisherman Manech, shortly before he died. Mathilde goes to meet
Sergeant Daniel Esperanza at his hospital and there hears the story
of the execution. She also receives a package with a photograph of
the men and copies of their last letters. As Mathilde reads and
rereads the letters and goes over Esperanza's tale, she begins to
suspect that perhaps the story didn't end quite so neatly. And so
begins her very long investigation into the mysterious circumstances
surrounding the deaths of five condemned prisoners--one of whom, at
least, might not really be dead.
In Mathilde Donnay, Sebastien Japrisot has created one of the most
compelling and delightful heroines in modern fiction. Though
confined to a wheelchair since childhood, "Mathilde has other lives,
varied and quite beautiful ones." She paints, cares for her pets,
enjoys a rich fantasy life, and is relentless in her search for the
truth about Manech's death. But she is by no means the only vibrant
personality leaping off Japrisot's pages. This author has a
remarkable ability to draw even minor characters in three dimensions
with economy and wit. Take Mathilde's mother, for instance, caught
in mid-card game: "At bridge, manille, bezique, Mama is a dirty
rotten swine. Not only is she an ace with the pasteboards, but she
throws her opponents off their mettle by insulting or making fun of
them." And even the characters we meet only through other people's
memories--the condemned men--are so fully realized that you find
yourself torn over which one you hope may have survived. As Mathilde
comes ever closer to solving the mystery of what happened at Bingo
Crépuscule that January morning in 1917, Sebastien Japrisot proves
himself a master storyteller and A Very Long Engagement a near
perfect novel "
from:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-
/0452272971/002-9459867-5728025?v=glance
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Author:
" Sébastien Japrisot est né à Marseille en 1931 sous le nom
de Jean-Baptiste RossiI. En 1950, alors qu'il n'a que dix-huit
ans, et qu'il est étudiant à la Sorbonne, il publie sous son vrai
nom un premier roman, Les Mal Partis, Il recevra en 1966, lors de sa
réédition le prix de l'Unanimité décerné par un jury composé de
Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Aragon, Elsa
Triolet, Adamov, Jean-Louis Bory et Robert Merle. Il n'a que 18 ans. Après une expérience de
concepteur et de chef de publicité il publie Compartiment tueurs et
Piège pour Cendrillon (Grand Prix de Littérature Policière), qui
rencontrent d'emblée la faveur de la critique et du public. Succès
que viendra confirmer La Dame dans l'auto avec des lunettes et un
fusil (Best Crime novel en Grande-Bretagne). Après une période
consacrée à l'écriture de scénario pour le cinéma, il revient à la
littérature avec L'Été meurtrier (Prix des Deux Magots 1978, César
de la meilleure adaptation cinématographique en 1984). Depuis
lors, tous ses livres ont été portés à l'écran. En 1986, Sébastien
JAPRISOT publie La Passion des femmes et, en 1991, Un long dimanche
de fiançailles, qui obtient le Prix Interallié. Dernièrement,
Sébastien Japrisot fit ses débuts dans l'écriture théâtrale avec la
pièce La Lune apache, pièce qui ne fut jamais montée de son vivant ;
il appréhendait le milieu du théâtre. Et il achevait son dernier
roman Là-haut les tambours lorsqu'il est mort le mardi 4 mars 2003,
à l'âge de 71 ans. "
from:
http://www.alalettre.com/actualite/longdimanche.htm
Translation: Sébastion Japrisot was born in Marseille in 1931 with
the name Jean-Baptiste Rossil. In 1950, when he was 18 years old and
studied at the Sorbonne university, he published is first novel
under his real name: 'Les Mal Partis'. For this novel he received in
1966 - when a new edition of the book was published - an award
granted by a jury which consisted of Jean-Paul Sartre, Louise
Aragon, Elsa Triolet, Adamov, Jean-Louis Bory and Robert Merle. He
was just 18. After some experience as a creative and head of
publicity, he published "Compartiment tueurs" and
"Piege pour Cendrillon" (which won the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière)
which were both highly acclaimed by critics and the public. His
succes was confirmed by the novel "La Dame dans l'auto avec des
lunettes et un fusil" (Best Crime novel in the UK). After a period
of screenwriting, he returned to novels with
"L'Eté meurtier" (Prix des Deux Magots 1978, César - French version of the Oscars - for the
best screenplay in 1984). After this, all his books have been
filmed. In 1986 Sébastien Japriso published "La Passion des femmes"
and in 1991 "Un long dimanche de fiançailles" - which received the
Prix Interallié. Finally, Sébastien Japrisot made his debut in
theatre writing with the play La lune apache: a play which were
never performed during his life: he feared the theatre world. And
wrote his final novel "La-haut les tambours" and passed away March
4th 2003, aged 71.
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Director:
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Cast:
Audrey Tautou (Mathilde), Gaspard Ulliel
(Manech), Dominique Pinon (Sylvain), Clovis Cornillac (Benoît), Jérôme Kircher
(Bastoche), Chantal Neuwith (Bénédicte), Albert Dupontel
(Célestin Poux), Denis Lavant (Six-Sous), Jean-Pierre Becker (Esperanza) and
others.
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