Amelie
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Movie Reviews of Amelie
Movie Review: Brilliant Romance
Summary: 5 Stars
"Amelie", a French film from director Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Delicatessen", "City of Lost Children") is a fairy tale confection that is sure to please most everyone who has the opportunity to watch it.
Amelie (Audrey Tautou), a young waitress living in Montmarte, happens to find a small box of toys behind a loose tile in her bathroom. She decides to anonymously reunite the toys with their owner, now a man in his late 40s. After she tracks him down, she leaves the box in a phone booth that he passes every day. As he passes, she calls the booth causing him to stop and find the box. Amelie stops at a local bar and the man also stops there, talking about the curious events of the day. He proclaims that he will call his daughter and grandson, because he hasn't talked to his daughter in many years. Gratified, Amelie begins to do small anonymous favors for the people in her life. Her path crosses with Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz), a strange young man who collects discarded photo booth pictures. She is attracted to him, but completely unable to introduce herself.
I think it would be difficult for anyone to dislike "Amelie". The story is so uplifting, the lead actress is so enormously appealing and likable, the supporting cast is so excellent, the production qualities are completely top notch.
Jeunet has crafted a vision of Montmarte and Paris that is idyllic, picture book perfect, causing many intellectuals in France to denounce the film. In my opinion, these people are trying to find fault with the film because it is so good. They are jealous. This is a lovable confection for all ages. I'll address the all ages thing later.
The film is washed in a sepia tint giving each frame the appearance of an old photograph. Set in 1997, the settings look like they were pulled from the 40s. With the exception of a modern video camera, pretty much the entire film is devoid of modern technology. None of the characters drive cars and only one of them uses a small motor bike to get around. This lack of technology only serves to make the film appear even more like a fairy tale.
Amelie and her friends inhabit a Paris that is also extremely clean. No graffiti and little dirt appear in any frame as she travels to and fro. This helps attain and retain the idealized vision of life that in turn helps the viewer live inside this fairy tale.
Amelie, as played by Audrey Tautou, is so kind, friendly and infectious that it is difficult not to like her. Tautou could pass as Audrey Hepburn's love child, the resemblance is so striking. She is a young woman that realizes she has a gift for helping people anonymously. With this realization, it becomes her reason for life. Amelie is a strange girl, quiet but pretty, unconfident with strangers but also looking for a relationship. She grew up in a strange family environment, which helps explain some of her behavior. This family history is amusingly, and quickly, presented by Jeunet at the beginning of the film. Audrey Tautou is very charming in this role and this film. I inadvertently watched a DVD of "French Beauty Institute" the same night. Tautou has a supporting role in the film, but barely makes an impact. Hopefully, she will be able to find the type of roles that will ensure a long and healthy career.
The overall message of "Amelie" is so uplifting that it raised my spirits all day. Much like the disastrous American film "Pay It Forward", the film has a message that if we help strangers, our world will be a better place. The difference in the story between the two films is that "Amelie" does not rely on preachy storytelling or character martyrdom to get the message across. Amelie does her thing and the consequences happen, causing us to laugh and learn from her example.
Another wonderful thing about the film is that not all of the consequences of her good deeds last for very long. Despite the fairy tale aspect of the film, this helps it seem more real and gives the message more resonance.
I would think that "Amelie" would be a perfect film to take the entire family to, but there are a few things to be aware of. The film is subtitled, which will prevent the youngest kids from understanding it. Also, there are a few very brief images of nudity in a sexual situation. Two scenes are set in a sex shop and the characters price sex toys before displaying them, but they don't discuss them at all or put them into the context of what they are supposed to do. These few things will probably keep parents from taking children, but, in my view, that is a mistake. If they can read subtitles, they should see "Amelie". The film is great for everyone and should eventually be experienced by everyone. Wouldn't it be better for your child to see a film about a girl who does good deeds than some violent action film at every mutliplex?
"Amelie" apparently caused quite a sensation in France. It is now the top grossing film in that country and has inspired people to do little good deeds for strangers. I have even heard that a tour company is offering a tour of the sights used in the film.
Hopefully, "Amelie" will catch on here in the U.S. as well.
Movie Review: Not a "romantic comedy"
Summary: 5 Stars
Even if, having read the previous reviews, you are expecting something smarter and funnier than your average inane RC, you still shouldn't focus on either the romance or the comedy. Because, to my mind at least, they are not the most important sides of the story. Rather, the love-and-happiness quality of the film stems from a certain very serious philosophical attitude, exemplified most obviously by the Tour De France scenes, when past and present come together.To repeat, Amelie he Movie does not try to be "heartwarming." It only HAPPENS to have that effect on those without an understanding of Amelie the Character's unique vision. (By the way, the "heart" root figures too often in the preceding reviews, as though the film's theme and goal is to show us How We Can All Be Nice To Each Other and flood the audience with sweet joy. It's NOT.)
Again, don't make the mistake of taking this for a just-about "family" movie. It's not light-weighed, it's trim like an athelete's perfected body. Instead, watch it carefully. The hints are all here. Notice the depth of difference between Amelie and her mostly likeable but ordinary acquaintances. Take note how she stands out against this background, invisibly playing with it, usually kindly, sometimes vengefully, all the while keeping a low profile.
Of course, to the casual viewer Amelie seems a wonderful, quirky, shy person basically not very different from everyone else. Ho. Right, wouldn't YOU like to believe yourself to be as free-spirited and deeply empathic, wouldn't YOU like to think that you, too, possess the same kind of instant intuitive insight, that you feel and understand life with the same acuteness? More important (this isn't about insulting you personally, dear reader, but about prying your eyes open) wouldn't you like to think that ALL people are like Amelie on some level, and that if only we could pay more attention to each other, life would change dramatically?
Well, forget all that. As we all MUST admit in moments of honesty, the great majority of people, and France is no exception, are not nice, or sweet, or imaginative. The average person anywhere is usually quite dull, stressed-out and self-concerned - whatever better directions his life might have taken in different circumstances. It's been mentioned that Paris of "Amelie" is not the real city with its problems. Well, of course it's not, and people in the movie are not "real" either - to anyone except Amelie and her friend/lover/comrade. They are creatures of a sharply different kind. In fact, the tinge of golden and pink that gives the cinematography here its special charm is an attempt to introduce the viewer to this special vision!
This is to say, we see the whole movie as though THROUGH THE EYES of Amelie. If it weren't so, the people around her would seem perfectly ordinary to you, dear reader. She, for her part, does not care for a whole cluster of concepts mundanes have, e.g. "reality," "living within one's imaginings" etc. Which is why the film is unafraid to use special effects even in its Monmartre scenes. It's no surprise, then, that the "realistic" ending with leaping into the sack seems not just disappointing, but also somehow unlikely. Having watched the movie, anyone begins to suspect that Amelie's life would be doomed to a (at least inwardly) dramatic and adventurous course.
In short, she is incredibly gifted to only partially belong to this dreary world, and equally gifted, not to mention lucky, to meet someone else of her kind. Of course, a psychiatrist deprived of their vision would think them both slightly deluded, and nearly EVERY person to have written a review on this site, too, is comfortably convinced of the same, even if it doesn't feel important. "Fantasy," "sweet," "fairy-tale" - those are keywords betraying just how remote most of the commentators are from understanding this movie (even if some of them words zero in on the truth in an uncanny way). The reason is, to understand something so personally-colored, it is necessary to either have had similar experiences or at least seriously CONSIDER the movie's message. "Amelie" is a rare example of "Air from other planets," of true art in popular entertainment, but if you refuse to put away your customary ides about what is real and so forth, all you will see on this DVD is a pretty, funny romantic flick. T.
Movie Review: AMELIE ROCKS
Summary: 5 Stars
The term "magic" -- as relating to movies and not just the word for a witch's spell or a magician conjuring a rabbit -- was long ago co-opted by the likes of Disney and Spielberg. The Disney and Spielberg corporate machines turned "magic" into just another gear in the works, with shots of awed actors gazing at something amazing followed by some jaw-dropping special effects shot.
It's been a long time that something truly magical, not phony or manufactured, has graced the silver screen. So Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie (a.k.a. Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain) comes as a most welcome new gem. It deserves to be cherished, hugged and celebrated.
Audrey Tautou (Venus Beauty Institute) stars in the title role, an adorable, waifish little darling who reminded me, by turns, of Charlie Chaplin, Giulietta Masina and Audrey Hepburn. On the day of Princess Diana's death, Amelie finds a little box hidden in the bathroom of her little Montmarte apartment: a little boy's treasure chest from years gone by. She decides to return it to its now grown-up owner without revealing herself to him. When she sees the man's reaction -- shock, joy and tears -- she vows to perform more good deeds.
Most of these deeds involve a great deal of clever preparation, and these play out like the "Mousetrap" game, where one seemingly unconnected move leads to another one and they all logically connect only at the end.
For example, an incredibly sour man sits around in the cafe where Amelie works pining after his ex-girlfriend who also works there. Using several small, nearly untraceable steps, Amelie plants the seeds for new love between the man and a dowdy, hypochondriac woman who works the cigarette counter.
This and the many wonderful other episodes never run back to back. They're cleverly intertwined with one another, keeping the mysteries moving along at the right speed.
Of course, Amelie's greatest challenge is to find love herself, which is not easy for such a shy girl who can't even show up to take credit for her own good deeds. In one scene, after she lets her potential soulmate Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz) walk away from her door, she literally melts (thanks to some brilliantly-utilized CGI effects).
The movie begins daringly, with a narrated flashback to Amelie's childhood explaining her quirky personality and running some 20-odd minutes before the actual story even begins. This talky, cartoony sequence had the potential to alienate viewers quickly. But instead it easily and quickly sets up the film's warmth, humor and charm that it sustains perfectly throughout.
It's difficult to describe the look of the film, which is painstakingly precise, but colorful, airy and alive at the same time. It's like a Chuck Jones cartoon, but slower, and like an MGM musical, but faster. In order to get the precise vision of sunniness and goodness he wanted, director Jeunet digitally altered Montmarte's look, taking out the garbage and graffiti, and even changing the clouds above into more decorative shapes. It's a utopian vision of how great the world could really be if generosity were traded regularly and not hoarded like gold.
Amelie shows a completely unusual side of Jeunet, who created the dark, bizarre underworlds of Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children (both co-directed by his former collaborator Marc Caro) and Alien Resurrection. Jeunet has now expunged all traces of weirdness and darkness to make this lovely new confection.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon proved that American mass audiences can and will sit through a movie with subtitles, and I suspect that the subtitles on the French-language Amelie will likewise not deter them. This is a movie that audiences all over the world have treasured, and America shouldn't be any different.
I also foresee Oscar nominations for Ms. Tautou, Mr. Jeunet, and one big one for Best Picture (that is if distributor Miramax can let go of its quasi-talented "prestige" director Lasse Hallstrom and his new film The Shipping News and put its muscle behind this one instead). Like Amelie herself, I'm moved to do a good deed and share this movie with everyone
Movie Review: Unique
Summary: 5 Stars
Amelie (or, as its proper title goes, "The fabulous destiny of Amelie Poulain") is a modern fairy tale, and a movie so unique in every way that there really is nothing to compare it with (though the makers of Big Fish took a good look at it, for sure). Set in 1997 Paris (but a version of it with quiet railwaystations, uncrowded streets and no tourists...) it nonetheless has all the atmosphere and feel of the 50s. It is sweet, funny and optimistic, yet has at its core a strange note of nostalgia and quiet melancholy. Its subtle surrealism at times expands into marvellous flights of fancy: don't be surprised to see young Amelie play doctor to a green blubber monster, to hear the bedside lamp and the paintings on the bedroom wall discuss their owner's love life, or to see Amelie's inner conflicts dramatized in the TV broadcasts she watches. None of this, however, gets in the way of the viewer's involvement with the characters, who, strange as some of them are, have a real power to move. The impression of disarming innocence is merely superficial, as becomes clear when we find Amelie wondering, while overlooking the city, how many couples are having an orgasm right at that moment (15, and we get to see them all), or when, later, she tracks down the love of her life in a sexshop. The daring mix of ingredients is thoroughly European, and, indeed, very French. This could never have come out of Hollywood.
After a resume of Amelie's childhood that's as hilarious as it is effective, the story proper gets under way when Amelie hears the news of Princess Diana's death. (Don't miss the original French: to Amelie and her friends the princess is known as 'la-dee-dee'). Shocked, she drops the cap of a bottle she's holding, which rolls down the bathroom floor and dislodges a tile. Behind it, Amelie finds an old cigar box stuffed with boyhood memorabilia. Her 'fabulous destiny' is revealed to her in a flash: she will find the owner, and if he's moved by the retrieval of this box, Amélie will dedicate her life to making others happy. And so it goes. Amelie starts working her, often very inventive, little miracles among the people in her vicinity. And a colourful bunch they are: the old man who never gets out of his house because his bones are brittle as glass, and who spent the last 20 years painting endless copies of the same Renoir; the hypochondriac Georgette, who, ironically, is a cigarette seller; paranoid Joseph, who sits in the bar where Amelie works day in day out to record observations of his ex-girlfriend's behavior on his dictaphone; Amelie's obsessive-compulsive father, and his inexplicably travelling garden gnome; the concierge, still pining 40 years on for her lost lover; the bullyish grocer Collignon, who, 'unlike artichokes' has no heart (and gets his just deserts in some of the funniest scenes in the movie), and his soft-spoken help, Lucien; and of course the strange young man who collects discarded snapshots from the garbage at railwaystation photobooths. Unfortunately, when it comes to her own happiness, Amelie is pathologically shy. Much like Austen's Emma she goes about arranging things for others, and forgetting herself: she prefers to live a dream. And when despite herself she finds the dream coming true but requiring decisive action, she comes up with some very complicated ruses. While the story unfolds, there are delightful surprises around every corner, both in little asides to the plot (Amelie wants to give some money to a pan-handler, who says 'No thanks, miss, I don't work on Sundays), and in extraordinary visual finds (when Amelie's first hopes of finding her lover are dashed, she literally dissolves into water).
The film has a dreamlike quality throughout which has to do with the golden glow of the images, the surprising takes on familiair Parisian sights, and the wonderful cinematography. The effect is greatly enhanced by the fantastic musical score, with piano and musette to the fore. A feel-good movie if ever there was one, yet eschewing every staple of that genre. A must-see.
Movie Review: The most delightful film Ive seen in years!
Summary: 5 Stars
This fantastical, charming Parisian tale about a painfully introverted café waitress who discovers happiness as a result of being either the do-gooder or devil in her friends' and neighbors' lives is one of the most delightfully playful and extroverted movies I have ever seen. Its freshness and originality are both cute and captivating, the performances strong, and the directing by Jean-Pierre Jeunet zestfully well done. Amelie is a cordial film that teaches its viewers to help others, awaken our spirits, and find joy in life's simple pleasures.Early on in the film, the character of Amelie Poulain (played by Audrey Tautou) has her life changed when she finds a small, rusty tin box filled with precious childhood relics hidden in her apartment bathroom. Amelie decides that if she is able to return the simplistic childhood treasures to its former owner, and if the former owner is happy as a result of the returned items, then she will live her life by changing the lives of others. She succeeds in this mission, and changes the lives of those who surround her in simple, albeit significant ways. However, Amelie realizes that she needs to change herself for the better in addition to being the guardian angel or imp in the lives of her acquaintances.
While Amelie is either enlivening or worsening the lives of those around her, she plays a wonderful game of cat and mouse with a man as lonely as she named Nino Quincampoix (played by Mathieu Kassovitz), who keeps a scrapbook of torn and reassembled photos of photo-booth customers. Amelie tries to build up the courage to meet Nino face-to-face and is mentored on how to succeed in doing so by her self-contained, artist neighbor Raymond Dufayel (Serge Merlin). As Amelie is coached by the eccentric and sage-like Raymond, she secretly provides him with vignettes recorded from television of wondrous events, such as a horse escaping from its stable to run in the Tour de France, and the peg-legged Sam "Peg Leg" Jackson dancing animatedly on a dirt path.
The characters of Amelie are either marvelously likable or highly detestable. The latter includes a mean-spirited grocer named Collignon (Urbain Cancelier), who treats his simple-minded colleague Lucien (Jamel Debbouze) with so much abhorrence and unkindness that the viewers find the fate of Collignon (which is a result of Amelie's doings) to be well deserved. Other characters (Amelie in particular) are so overtly affable, good-natured, and jovial, and are so embraced with deriving pleasure from life's simple things, to the point where they are nothing short of irresistible, and even mesmerizing.
The well-crafted work of the A-list collaborators (which all takes place on location in the postcard-perfect setting of cobble-stoned Paris) is superb. The cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel is--simply put--the best of 2001. Delbonnel's contribution to Amelie transcends the word "abstract". The original music by Yann Tiersen more than compliments the film with its unique and entrancing sound. In addition, Aline Bonetto's production design, Volker Schafer's art direction, and Marie-Laure Valla's set decoration provide Amelie with a look that is colorful and almost dreamlike.
Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet makes the world of Amelie a surreal blend of fantasy and wonder that could only be realized by a truly gifted artist and storyteller. His accomplishments in the film are individual and praiseworthy and are superlative to his past acclaimed works (which include Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children). Furthermore, the writing of the film (the story is by Guillaume Laurant and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and the screenplay and dialogue are by Laurant) is frankly the best original writing of 2001.
Amelie is on my top ten list of 2001, and I give to it the highest amount of praise possible. It tugs at your heartstrings, makes you both smile and laugh out loud, toys with your humor, and ultimately succeeds in lifting your spirits. There's magic and delight in this one.