Amélie

Amélie

Amélie, nama asal Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Pouline, satu filem Perancis komedi romantis yang diarah oleh Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Lakon layar yang ditulis oleh pengarah Jeunet bersama Guillaume Laurant, dengan latar belakang kehidupan di Montmartre, Paris. Filem ini merupakan filem usaha sama antara syarikat dalam negara negara Jerman dan Perancis.Filem ini telah memenangi banyak anugerah filem. Antaranya termasuk Filem Terbaik di Anugerah Filem Eropah pada tahun 2002 di Jerman dan Anugerah Cesar di Perancis pada tahun yang sama. Ia juga telah menerima lima pencalonan Anugerah Academy 2002 di Amerika Syarikat.

Filem Amélie mengisahkan tentang gadis yang pemalu tetapi memutuskan untuk mengubah kehidupan orang-orang di sekelilingnya sementara bergelumbang dengan kehidupannya sendiri yang terasing.Amélie Pouline, yang dibintangi oleh Audrey Tautou, seorang pelakon Perancis, merupakan seorang gadis yang giat berdaya imaginasi cergas. Amélie didiagnosis oleh ayahnya Raphael Pouline, pada masa kecil lagi, dan didapati dia mempunyai masalah jantung, yang sebenarnya Amélie segan untuk diperiksa oleh ayah yang serupa orang yang tidak dikenali, sedangkan Raphael tidak pernah sentuh anaknya selain pemeriksaan kesihatan. Amélie yang masih kanak-kanak lagi dilarang bermain dengan kanak-kanak lain dan bersekolah di rumah sahaja. Titik pertama yang penting dalam kehidupan Amélie adalah apabila ibunya dalam kes membunuh diri seseorang dari bumbung gereja. Selepas kejadian itu, ayah Amélie dari seorang pendiam, telah menjadi seorang yang, berbanding dengan masa isterinya masih hidup, pendiam. Walau bagaimanapun, Amélie membesar seperti orang lain dan menjadi seorang dewasa dan bekerja sebagai pelayan di Cafe des 2 Moulins, tanpa dipengaruhi oleh ayahnya. Titik kedua yang penting dalam hidup Amélie, adalah semasa kematian Diana, Puteri Wales dalam satu kemalangan pada tahun 1997. Amélie menyedari bahawa betapa rapuh dan pendeknya kebenaran kepada sesuatu dipanggil 'hayat.' Kemudian Amélie membuat keputusan bahawa dia perlu membuat sesuatu, dalam masa yang masih ada, terhadap orang-orang di sekelilingnya.

Jikalau tidak tengok pada plot filem ini, perkara yang benar-benar menarik hati saya adalah watak-watak di sekeliling Cik Audrey Tautou, pelakon Amélie. Watak-watak yang berlainan ini telah dibina dan berhidup di dalam dunia yang dicipta oleh pengarah Jeunet. Dengan contohnya, penghisap rokok yang "hypochondriac (seorang yang terlalu cemas terhadap kesihatannya)", penjual barang runcit yang "tyrannical (lalim, zalim, kejam)", pelukis yang digelar "The Glass Man", yang mempunyai penyakit tulang tidak kukuh dan mudah cedera jika tidak berhati-hati.Walaupun filem ini agak fantasi dan memberi perasaan dibuat-buat, tetapi apa yang menarik hati saya adalah senyuman Amélie, Audrey Tauton, yang membawa perasaan cantik, dan sedikit nakal di samping wajahnya yang cantik itu.

Disediakan oleh

Foo Suan Hui

1 SHAC

Film Review

"Amelie Poulain" reviewed by Khairul Hafiz

Criticized by Khairul Hafiz bin Abu Zarin

The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain is a film of a romantic comedy genre directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. It shows the description of the modesty Parisian life, located at Montmartre.

In this story, Emilie is shown to have different behaviours from other children of her same age due to surroundings factors. She was diagnosed by her father to have a heart problems, Raphael Poulain who is an ex-army doctor treated her cold in the house. Her mother is a teacher decided to teach her at home and did not allow her to go to school to communicate with others.

After the tragic dead of her mother, Amelie stayed in the house with her father. After 5 years,she left the home and become the waitress at Two Windmills and still live surrounded by strange things. Then she found a treasure box owned by a young kid. By tracing down the owner of it which is Mr.Dominique Bredotau, she was also unintentionally has been involved in a Mrs.Wallace's husband secret story, and brings her to the Mr. Raymond Dufayel, his reclusive neighbour and his drawing masterpiece. Being able to return the treasure box to Mr.Dominique has made Amelie eager to help others.

I personally think that this movie magnificently shows the value of uniqueness. It shows that uniqueness is not sinful plus we can show the true self of us in this odd value by contributing and helping others. This movie might change the people scope of thinking nowadays, or the “paradigm” that we are taught and familiar with, that is; we are safe as long as we are same with other people, and they will like us and accept us. This is totally wrong since we have been too oriented to adopt the behaviour of copying other people which do not reflect our true self or a simplistic word to describe it, being hypocrite.  Emilie, what she is doing is being herself, honest to herself, honest to others, and the best of all is helping others. We cannot be copy cat, it’s better to be ourselves and accept the fact that we cannot satisfy everyone, but we can satisfy a lot of people by being nice even if we are weird.

                I can tell that the director of this movie is emphasizing the value of uniqueness, differentiation, not standardized, and avoid being copy-cat or hating our true personalities. This gives a lot of lessons, and the big ones are all of the “positive values” shown by Emilie. I would like to say this: choose a job that you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. This makes sense to Emilie, she is not helping people and considers it as works or burdening things, she enjoys helping others. The director of this movie is actually telling us directly that we have to enjoy what we are doing especially in helping others.

                The other positive value is, Emilie is not going to wait and sit there so that what she wants will come to her. Instead, she pursues what she wants. Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there. Whatever we do, we must perform our best and giving the best effort that we possibly can, we will turn out to be a positive person like Emilie.

However, the nudity part of this movie is seen to be too revealing and quite embarrassing. Sexual explicit materials will affect how people would behave, especially children and teenagers. The positive values of this film are blend together with nudity, make it a little bit imperfect. Free sex, is the negative idea emphasized or shown, it would be harmful for people behaviour. As human being, we should know that our body parts are not to be displayed for entertainment and free sex will destroy the obviousness of human descent.

                Actually there are a lot of things that can be criticized about the movie, and it would be 1000 pages to tell them all. A few big things mentioned actually are more than enough. To conclude, this movie, The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain has a lot of magnificent ideas and values being emphasized. However, there is obscene elements displayed in the movie which are totally unnecessary.

"The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain"

Amelie is a story about a girl named Amelie whose childhood was suppressed by her Father's mistaken concerns of a heart defect. With these concerns Amelie gets hardly any real life contact with other people. 

This leads Amelie to resort to her own fantastical world and dreams of love and beauty. She later on becomes a young woman and moves to the central part of Paris as a waitress. After finding a lost treasure belonging to the former occupant of her apartment, she decides to return it to him. 

After seeing his reaction and his new found perspective. She decides to devote her life to the people around. Such as, her father who is obsessed with his garden-gnome, a failed writer, a hypochondriac, a man who stalks his ex girlfriends, the " ghost", a suppressed young soul, the love of her life and a man whose bones are as brittle as glass. But after consuming herself with these escapades. 

Amelie finds out that she is disregarding her own life and damaging her quest for love. Amelie then discovers she must become more aggressive and take a hold of her life and capture the beauty of love she has always dreamed of.

The Pretty Amelie

            I had watched the movie for twice as I can’t really catch its meaning at first because the format of this film is very different from the usual format of movies which I commonly watched. After I watched it for the second time, I began to understand what this film really talking about and I love the way they present the film.

           There is always a kid lying in our heart and soul. However, not much people in Amelie’s age realise this. Only a few people like Amelie, maintain the feeling like a kid and being naïve enough to bring joy to people through helping them with her heart. She helped a lonely old man found back his childhood memory, she sent Santa Claus to all over the world, she described the world vividly to a blind man, and she sent the missing love letter to the lonely landlady. She is playful as a kid. She drew arrows in the park and play hide and seek with her lover. She likes to put her hand in the seeds bag and enjoy the feeling, which I used to do so when I was still a kid.

            Inside every one of us there is a hidden child, a child who used to dream big, a child who used to be brave, a child who used to be stubborn and refuse to grow up, a child who are naïve but smart, a child who are cute and naughty and a child who used to help whoever happily without thinking. But when we grow older, we have exposed to the outside world, we lost the child. And we can only find back this child who lies within us with the help of others.

Amelie

I have always dreamed of going to France one day. In my humble opinion, in case anyone would like to differ, France is one of the most beautiful countries out there. From their people to their architectural designs of their cities and buildings. And heck, Amelie, is one of the movies out there that managed to portray Paris beautifully, although, err, their people, quite differently. (This is the first time in my life I come across so many weird, quirky characters in a movie. Hopefully not in reality.)

Amelie is a romantic yet eccentric, comedy film, directed by a French film director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who in fact, directed quite a few films which I have never watched before except Alien Resurrection. (Alien Resurrection. Wow, I'm surprised.)

It has quite a conventional, simple romantic storyline per se. A simple and innocent girl meeting an equally odd, peculiar boy. Love at first sight. Some challenges here and there. In the end, voila! The girl and the boy live happily ever after. (Hopefully.) However, comically, it is a relatively fresh and authentic comedy. (From a non-French point-of-view.) Some of the funny moments in the movie were those truly out-of-the-box, nonsensical imaginations of Amelie. I guess extreme loneliness can actually bring out those potentially craziest imaginations out of an individual, eh? And also the times where Amelie punished Mr. Collignon, a grocer in the movie, who was rather abusive towards his handicapped assistant. The movie is also filled with many weird and odd characters who have the most peculiar habits one can imagine. Watching them living together in the same community is indeed very  entertaining.  

    

The filmmakers cleverly executed and exploited the wonders of digital intermediate here, creating a nostalgic 90's feel to the movie. Another noteworthy aspects of Amelie is its music. Here, Yann Tiersen played a wonderful role in creating music which made the movie more enjoyable to watch. I never thought that, by just changing the rhythm and the instruments used, can change the emotions of the same music. Brilliant.

The use of narration in Amelie was apt. It managed to engage and kept me watching without feeling lost in the middle of the movie. Credit should be given to the film's narrator, Andre Dussollier. His narration was very effective in Amelie, like Morgan Freeman's narration in The Shawshank Redemption, though sometimes absurd. But most importantly, it suits the movie perfectly.

This light-hearted and meaningful movie is definitely suitable to watch with our families, although do take caution with young ones as some parts of the film are quite sexual in nature. Apart from those, Amelie is definitely one of the memorable movies that one can best watch with family during weekend.

Adieu.

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain

The charming Amélie, already a hit in its native France, is bound to capture people hearts and imaginations with its whimsical fable. Its color-drenched view of Paris and stylistic camera work is a visual treat. But the most engaging aspect is the performance of 23-year-old Audrey Tautou as a kindhearted, shy waitress whose interior life is much more compelling than her day-to-day existence. After her mother dies and her father withdraws with grief, Amélie retreats into solitude.

But after discovering a box of childhood treasures hidden behind a loose brick in her wall and returning it to the rightful owner, Amélie becomes crazy with the power of anonymously intervening in people's lives.

The movie becomes a modern-day fairy tale. Its heroine, part cloistered princess and part knight in shining armor, even bears a bit of a resemblance to Joan of Arc — though she dresses in Doc Maartens and thrift-store fashions. And instead of battling, she orchestrates — behind-the-scenes and unbeknownst to the people involved. She inspires an elderly eccentric artist, avenges the victim of a cruel bully, spurs her father to take his first vacation and convinces a downcast widow that her philandering husband truly loved her. Inspired by an appreciation for senseless beauty, she impulsively links her arm with that of a blind man and provides a running commentary on the sights around him, then scampers off to perform more good deeds.

But her focus on bettering the lives of others (some might call it meddling) keeps Amélie from facing her own growing loneliness. She exchanges glances in a Metro station with a handsome eccentric (Mathieu Kassovitz); he is intrigued, but she lacks the confidence to approach him directly. Tautou is the very definition of gamine: Her smile is impish, her dark eyes resonate with warmth and sly intelligence, and she has the coltish grace of a young Audrey Hepburn.

Equally enchanting is director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Paris; his affection for his Montmartre neighborhood is palpable. We see it as Amélie, the dreamer, must see it — a romanticized City of Light, all dramatic skies and glimmering days. Composer Yann Tierson's evocative score is lovely, lilting and bittersweet.

critic by : Zulfadhli Bin Abdul Malik a.ka. imaJOEnation

Amélie – review

Amélie (Audrey Tatou) grows up the lonely child of parents who do not know how to show their love for her. She becomes a thoughtful, quiet, observant girl who decides to change the lives of those around her, opening hearts to the adventure that is waiting for them, taking revenge on a cruel grocer, bringing together a couple who are afraid to show their longing for each other, and bringing the outside world to a reclusive painter and to her own father. But will she do for herself what she has done for others and find love with the mysterious collector of rejected photo booth pictures? And who is the "ghost" who appears in so many of the torn photos?


AMELIE is filled with airy whimsical charm the way that a chocolate soufflé is filled with air. Audrey Tatou is just right as Amélie, a perfect gamine in a Lulu haircut.

Writer-director Jean-Pierre Jeunet gives the story a feeling somewhere between fairy tale and documentary. His behind-the-scenes glimpses of the characters' likes and dislikes – from cleaning out a toolbox and getting fingers pruny in the bath to sticking a hand in a barrel of grain and cracking the sugar on a crème brulée -- are deliciously particular and somehow very touching.