History Film / AVeryLongEngagement

''Un long dimanche de fiançailles'' (literally:''"A long Engagement Sunday"'', but internationally titled ''A Very Long Engagement'') is a 2004 French film directed by Creator/JeanPierreJeunet, [[TheFilmOfTheBook based on the titular book]] by Sébastien Japrisot.

In 1919, a few months after the war's end, Mathilde still refuses to believe that Manech is dead, and sets out on an investigation to find out what happened to him, clinging onto the hope that he's still alive. As she investigates all over post-war France, she meets people who are also connected to the five condemned soldiers, including vengeful prostitute Tina Lombardi (Creator/MarionCotillard) and widow Élodie Gordes (Creator/JodieFoster), and learns their stories.

* ProtestSong: Six-sous, who's been thrown on the No Man's land to die, sings the RealLife "Song of Craonne" (from 1917), which reflects the soldiers having enough of the immense sacrifices in the conflict's infamous attrition trench warfare (there were mutinies in the French army in 1917, incidentally). He does so while urinating "standing up, like a man" in defiance, facing the Germans and ordering them to open fire at him, which they do.

* WorldOfJerkass: UsefulNotes/{{Corsica}} is depicted like this, with all the people that Germain Pire meets there being either unsympathetic to him or downright hostile as soon as he mentions that he's looking for Tina Lombardi.

** For example, there's the scenes where the poor French soldiers climb out of the trenches on the No Man's Land and are completely obliterated by German machine gun fire and artillery within seconds. One ends up particularly unlucky as he gets [[{{Gorn}} blown to bits]] by an artillery shell right in front of Manech, who gets covered in his guts and freaks out as a result.

* ReplacementGoldfish: Benoît Notre-Dame put the dogtag of a dead young French soldier on Manech to conceal his identity. Said soldier's mother comes at the hospital to see him, finds out it's not her son, and treats Manech as if he was her son anyway. She's implied not to be all that sane and projects her love for her son onto Manech to cope with the [[OutlivingOnesOffspring death of her true son]].

* MeaningfulName: Germain Pire. "Pire" means "worse" in French. The character's catchphrase in French is "Pire que la fouine" ("worse than weasel"), to show how his private investigator activity is SeriousBusiness.

* EasyAmnesia: Played with. We don't really know what exactly caused the amnesia (probably a coma due to heavy wounds after Manech was shot by the German plane), so a realistic cause is possible. However, both procedural and declarative memory seem to be affected ("He even had to learn to read and write again.").

** Biscotte and his wife need another baby to make him retire from war according to law. But he's unfertile (they adopted the other children). Biscotte's friends Bastoche enters the picture, doing them a favor. Ensues instead a love affair that ruin his marriage and friendship with Bastoche, but no baby. Then both men die leaving her a widow with 5 kids to feed.
** [[spoiler: Tina Lombardi's revenge arc, since before her execution she receives a message from her late Ange telling her to go on with her life and that revenge is pointless.]]