The last time I told someone about seeing Amelie and it is added on my list of favorite movies, one part I talked about was Audrey Tatou and how charming she was in the role. Then that someone asked me 'Is she better than Scarlett Johansson?'. Answer is maybe. But she looks like a French equivalent of Anne Hathaway who both had big eyes, lips and pale skin.
Anyway, I bought Amelie for my birthday that was part of a collection of arthouse and foreign films that was shown in an indie cinema called Dendy when these films couldn't be widely released. Last time I seen it was great. It was the first time I seen a foreign movie and I want to see it again and last night once i saw it, unlike every updated DVDs, it wasn't a dissappointment.
This is the story of Amelie Poulain who had a somewhat bizzare childhood. Her father thought that she had a heart ailment, so she never went to school and was lonely and begin playing with imaginary characters. Her mother died so young from a person commiting suicide in a Catholic Church. Time goes by and Amelie is waitress at The Two Windmills so when on the night Princess Diana had died, she found a box of children's toys in her flat, she decided to go find that person and later succeeded. She then decides to become a secret guardian angel for the people around her. She goes around making two people fall in love, playing practical jokes on bullies and.. helping her dad get tricked into thinking her gnome had gone travelling. Meanwhile, Amelie also help herself by making a person named Nino fall in love with her in a series of unconventional yet unique methods.
Amelie develops all of its characters from a hydrochondriac, a jealous lover, her detached father, a mentally challenged grocer to a neighbour with broken bones. These characters get a head start of who they are, thanks to a useful narration from the beginning. We get a lot of character depth
The cinematography is almost unique, the screenplay makes Amelie into this clever, optimistic and yet original but charming movie. It goes into several storylines between Amelie's relationships with her colleagues at The Two Windmills.
What Amelie nails is testing your patience. The storyline between Amelie and her love interest Nino is almost endlessly mind bending and could be inspired by that "follow the rabbit hole" from Alice In Wonderland that go in multiple paths of returning Nino's photo album and to make both Nino and herself fall in love.
I actually find the humour enjoyable. It blends in from dark to intelligent and I laughed a lot. A bit of the film is somewhat erotic, with Nino working at an adult shop, several sex scenes and Amelie... guessing how many people are having orgasms, playing out the generalisation of the French as a sexualised race.
Audrey Tatou proves to be a wonderful talent playing as Amelie who is pretty, charming and likeable as the title character. The rest of the cast are also well played.
Amelie is now considered as one of the greatest world films all time and it is. So chic, so French so Amelie
No comments:
Post a Comment