With five Academy Award nominations under its belt, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie stands as a worthy choice for a first look at the interesting styles of French cinema. Amelie is a shy little girl with no real friends, except for her wild imagination. Her father is an ex-army doctor and thinks she has a heart defect at age six while listening to her fast beating heart with a stethoscope. Her heart was only beating fast because of her excitement from the rare close interaction with her father. She is home-schooled by her mother. Tragedy strikes her at a young age when her only friend, her goldfish named Blubber has to be released into a stream because of its frequent attempt at suicide, or in other words, jumping out of its bowl onto the floor. Shortly after, her mother is killed instantly by a falling suicide jumper outside of the Notre Dame cathedral while they are visiting to prey for a baby boy. Amelie lives with father until she is old enough to move out and she becomes a waitress at a small café called the Two Windmills. She lives in her own flat and enjoys doing random things that make her happy, like skipping stones across St. Martin’s Canal. She frequently visits her father and has no boyfriend, due to a couple failed attempts. On the night of Princess Diana’s death, Amelie finds a small box within the walls of her flat after noticing a loose bathroom tile. Inside the box are toys, pictures and other memories of a child’s life. That night, Amelie becomes determined to return the box to its former owner. With the help of a mysterious, fragile old man known as the Glass Man that likes to paint, from the flats across the alley, she finds the man that once lived in her flat years ago and returns the box to him by leaving it in a phone booth and calling the booth as the man, named Dominique, walks by. He is touched and decides to look up his daughter, whom he hasn’t spoken to in years. From this moment on, Amelie decides to be a regular "do-gooder". She helps lead around a blind man and helps one of her co-workers find new love. Amelie is almost too busy to help herself and barely succeeds at getting the attention of the man she is meant to be with. He is a man named Nino. He likes collecting discarded photo booth pictures and putting them in a scrapbook. Amelie plays hide and seek games with Nino for a while. She leaves notes and clues about herself everywhere, leading the curious Nino around by the nose. Eventually the two get together and Amelie can be happy and share life with someone else.
This film is about individuality. Amelie is her own person and has her own, random guilty pleasures. Her imagination has brought her through life with simple satisfaction. There is always something that makes someone different from everyone else. The story is also about not letting good things slip through your fingers in life. If you see something you really want, you can’t procrastinate or be afraid. You have to go ahead and work at achieving your prize. Amelie has finally found somebody that she wants to love and at first she is shy and plays cat-and-mouse games in order to get him. With the help of the Glass Man she realizes that she can’t continue to act cowardly even though she may be "fond of strategies". There is symbolism within the movie as well. The Glass Man is trying to recreate a Renoir painting and can’t seem to capture a young girl holding a glass within the painting. Amelie and the man say that the girl is different and absent. The Glass man suggests that maybe she tries hard to fix other people’s messy lives, instead of her own. He is throwing advisement at Amelie through witty symbolism.
Amelie was beautifully written. It is no surprise that it was nominated for best original screenplay at the Academy Awards. The strategically placed narration was effective and necessary to the flow of the script. The film was visually stunning, with an unforgettable opening of fast-paced storytelling and main character introductions. The color tone of the movie seemed to glow with shades of greens and blues, and occasional loud colors here and there to accent the scenery. Amelie poses as a comedy, but seems to have a dark side underneath, riddled with tragedies and strange, but unforgettable characters. There is no question in my mind as to why this movie was a success with both the French and American cinema.
This film is about individuality. Amelie is her own person and has her own, random guilty pleasures. Her imagination has brought her through life with simple satisfaction. There is always something that makes someone different from everyone else. The story is also about not letting good things slip through your fingers in life. If you see something you really want, you can’t procrastinate or be afraid. You have to go ahead and work at achieving your prize. Amelie has finally found somebody that she wants to love and at first she is shy and plays cat-and-mouse games in order to get him. With the help of the Glass Man she realizes that she can’t continue to act cowardly even though she may be "fond of strategies". There is symbolism within the movie as well. The Glass Man is trying to recreate a Renoir painting and can’t seem to capture a young girl holding a glass within the painting. Amelie and the man say that the girl is different and absent. The Glass man suggests that maybe she tries hard to fix other people’s messy lives, instead of her own. He is throwing advisement at Amelie through witty symbolism.
Amelie was beautifully written. It is no surprise that it was nominated for best original screenplay at the Academy Awards. The strategically placed narration was effective and necessary to the flow of the script. The film was visually stunning, with an unforgettable opening of fast-paced storytelling and main character introductions. The color tone of the movie seemed to glow with shades of greens and blues, and occasional loud colors here and there to accent the scenery. Amelie poses as a comedy, but seems to have a dark side underneath, riddled with tragedies and strange, but unforgettable characters. There is no question in my mind as to why this movie was a success with both the French and American cinema.
