Amelie Video

Average Rating:

One of the characteristics I've noticed in the two Jeunet films I've watched, involves his use of interconnecting threads in an otherwise juxtaposed or fractured story line. This is not exactly a unique technique in recent cinema. Paul Thomas Anderson used it quite effectively in "Magnolia." Likewise David Lynch in "Mullholand Drive," for just two examples. Jeunet surpasses all of them, however, in terms of playfulness and sheer directorial instinct. It owes also to a sensibility in French cinema that hearkens back most directly to the Jaques Tati era.

The artistic marriage of such an artfully clever director with an actress (Audrey Tautou) seemingly born to play a role can best be chalked up to kismet, synchroneity, harmonic convergence, whatever. I'm just glad they got together, for they make for an irresistable combo.

Highest marks for camera work, script, direction, acting, DVD transfer. This is the whole package. Don't let anything put you off from securing this grand-slam of a film. For something "completely different," also check out "City of Lost Children." I can't wait for "Delicatessan" to be released to DVD.

BEK

This story of a lonely girl becoming a do-gooder and eventually doing good for herself becomes a beautiful fantasy. It is a feel good movie without the usual audience manipulation tricks.

If any one thing is a negative in this film, it is the lack of an English dubbing option. The debate over which way is the best to watch a film in a foreign language, dubbed or subtitles, comes down to personal preference. I personally like to see films both ways, subtitled to hear the vocal tones and inflections actors give, preserving the film as the director intended; and dubbed so I can watch the visuals while understand what's being said. This film has so many wonderful visuals, at times I felt I was missing a lot while hurriedly reading the subtitles. It's unfortunate the DVD didn't come with a choice of viewing.

This is a great film, though, and well worth a spot on any film connoisseur's DVD shelf.

The only-child of a tight-lipped, hard-hearted doctor father and a neurotic schoolteacher mother, Amelie Poulaine grew up being too much unloved, with a not too happy childhood. As a young lady, she becomes a waitress at the Two Windmills cafe, but other times spends her time in an imaginative world of dreams, not forming close ties with people, being terribly shy.

One day, she is watching TV when Princess Diana's death is announced. From then on, she decides to be a healer of sorts, whether it be uniting a man with childhood memories he left in a cubbyhole in the skirting board long time ago, trying to soothe the hearts of people, make people's lives better, or being an avenging angel. The scene where she helps a blind man across the street and describes what's going on is simply magical.

Amelie is also befriended by artist Raymond Dufayel, known as the Glass Man because of a disease that has given him very brittle bones. They communicate indirectly through a painting he's working on, particularly a young girl that Dufayel's trying to figure out.

Amelie meets Nino Quincompoix, a man who collects discarded, frequently torn ID card photos from a photo booth and puts the reconstructed pieces in an album. Included in there many times is a stern bald man whose pictures are always torn up. Amelie finds Nino's album and wonders who the bald man is. This is a mystery included in the film.

There's Colignon the grocer, an obnoxious middle-aged man who delights himself in disparaging his assistant Lucien, who's slow-witted but nice and sensitive. Amelie feels sorry for Lucien and the scenes where she becomes his avenging angel at Colignon's expense are hilarious. At one point she tells Colignon, "You'll never be a vegetable. Even artichokes have hearts." Ouch, but well deserved.

Amelie's widowed father spends his life collecting garden statues to decorate his dead wife's shrine, instead of travelling around the world. Amelie steals one of them, a bearded garden gnome complete with red pointed hat, and then something weird happens. A few days later, her father receives a postcard from the gnome, who is apparently on holiday abroad!!! This goes on for a while and completely baffles him.

Audrey Tautou would've been my choice for Best Actress of the year. I simply melted everytime she smiled in the movie. She also bears a slight similarity to another Audrey--Hepburn. Both have in common black hair, a face brimming with charm, and irresistible smiles. Maybe that's why it was love at first sight with me.

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet uses some quirky film techniques, mostly visual imagery, such as a scene when Amelie literally dissolves into water. The onscreen narration is also useful. At times, it sets the stage for turning points in the film. Earlier, it describes the likes and hates of the Poulaines and the one important characteristic of the Two Windmill employees. He creates an imaginative film that's a breather from the usual Hollywood grind. But it's his closeups of Amelie and her smile that make this worth seeing over and over.