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Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet Written by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (scenario) Guillaume Laurant (screenplay) Cast Audrey Tautou – Amélie Poulain Mathieu Kassovitz – Nino Quincampoix Rufus – Raphaël Poulain Lorella Cravotta – Amandine Poulain Serge Merlin – Raymond Dufayel Jamel Debbouze – Lucien Clotilde Mollet – Gina Claire Maurier – Suzanne Isabelle Nanty – Georgette Dominique Pinon – Joseph Artus de Penguern – Hipolito Yolande Moreau – Madeleine Wallace Urbain Cancelier – Collignon Maurice Bénichou – Dominique Bretodeau Michel Robin – Mr. Collignon
Being a native-born speaker of English can occasionally have its drawbacks, regardless of what Karate Party’s illustrious CEO and in-house advocate of the Anglosphere might say. There are a lot of good films out there that aren’t even produced in English. True, the vast majority of high profile movies are produced in English speaking countries. Usually they are made America, but sometimes they’re produced in Britain or Canada or Australia or – thanks mainly to Peter Jackson – New Zealand. However, it is a rare feat for a non-English language movie to make it to a mass audience in the English speaking world. But every so often a foreign language movie does make it over the hurdles. French film Amélie is one of those rare films.
It’s a good one, too. Amélie does more than simply entertain, it provides the viewer with an experience that will be fondly remembered. Every character in the film is interesting: the landlady whose husband left her and went to live in South America, the café regular who is always muttering something into his microphone, the goldfish that tries to commit suicide. The film is somewhat surreal. There are paintings that move and a lamp that switches itself off. Stage prompts that appear in gutters to provide witty retorts to bullies. Amélie exists right on the line that separates the fantastic from the mundane. I’ve never been to Paris, but I hope it really is like this.
Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) has not really had a happy life when we first encounter her. Wrongly diagnosed with a heart problem in her childhood, she was home schooled and didn’t have any friends. When we see her grown up and in her early 20s, she’s still not happy. Her relationships with men haven’t provided her with any thrills and she is working as a waitress in a café.
Something happens to change that, though. She comes across a secret stash of childhood artefacts that belonged to a boy who lived in her flat in the 1950s. She makes the effort to track him down and manages to get it to him while retaining her anonymity. Thrilled with the reaction to this, Amélie becomes a do-gooder and tries to change the lives of others for the better – her father, a co-worker, her landlady and so on.
Yet there is still something that she’s missing. The fact that this film is a romantic comedy should tell you that it’s a guy. The object of her affections is Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz), a man who is fascinated by the discarded photographs around photo booths. They are strangers at first, but Amelie begins playful pursuit of Nino (the lucky guy).
Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen) has directed a rich, lavish work that is full of detail and wonder. Visually the film has a washed-out feel to it – like you’re looking at an intricate watercolour rather than a gaudy oil painting. The humour isn’t too subtle either, but it’s not going to hit you over the head with fart jokes. Amélie is a light-hearted comedy that will delight anyone whose heart hasn’t turned to stone. The downside is that fact that you have to read subtitles. Some people don’t respond well to having to do that, but the time flies by in this film – even if it is two hours long. It earns a solid four stars.
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