Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and star Audrey Tatou of Amelie re-team in this adaptation of Sebastien Japrisot’s WWI novel. Despite the exuberance and fancy of Jeunet’s style, the insane horror of that conflict comes through as well as in Kubrick’s Paths of Glory. But there’s mystery and romance and humor as well, too much of everything in fact. Frankly I did not give the film my best viewing, but its own excesses of plot and whimsy contributed to the wandering of my attention. Wow, wait a minute, that French housewife is Jodie Foster. Man, look at that crane shot, that CGI recreation of Paris, those sepia tones in the stunning cinematography. In a theater, perhaps it would all have washed over me, immersively, but in my easy chair it was just a box of bonbons, from which I was happy to sample a few and leave the rest. (2004, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-76, RT-78.)
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