Film : Amélie
Director : Jean-Pierre
Jeune
Genre : Romantic Comedy
What's the story?
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?
Review
This is a film about
love, shyness, practical jokes and passport photographs. Little Amelie is
brought up in difficult circumstances where her overloving but kooky parents
teach her from home, and she is raised in a world devoid of physical contact.
When her mother is killed by a tourist's suicide leap, Amelie is left alone
with her father and her imagination as a friend. The best parts is when Little
Amelie (a brilliant performance from Flora Guiet) diverts an annoying
neighbour's television signal every time his favorite football team is about to
score.
The action soon shifts
to the grown-up Amelie, now living away from her father and living and working
as waitress in Montmartre. Still shy and quiet, she works in a cafe full of
romantic duplicity and retreats to her lonely apartment where again her
imagination, as well as the television, are her only soulmates. Fragile,
frustrating but also whimsical and daring, Amelie's solitary life is altered by
another moment of serendipity; upon hearing the fateful news on television of
Princess Diana's death. The news of Princess Diana death changes everything.
The shock of the news causes Amelie to drop a bottle cap, which jars loose a
stone in the wall of the flat, which leads her to discover a rusty old box in
which a long-ago boy hoarded this treasures. And in tracking down the man who
was that boy, and returning his box, Amelie finds her life's work - she will
make people happy. But not in any old way. So, she will amuse herself by
devising the most extraordinary strategems for bringing about their happiness.
Determined in her new
role as a 'Zorro' (girl version of superhero doing a good deeds) for other
peoples's wellbeing, Amelie sets off helping blind people through town,
creating harmony in the love lives of the cafe colleagues and playing the
cruellest of tricks on her irritating local gocer. By no means sweetness and
light, the last person she thinks about is herself, until another encounter at
a passport photo booth opens her own heart for the first time to the idea of
love. And really, this is where the plot begins. Amelie's most difficult case
turns out to be Nino Quicampoix, a lonely sex shop employee who collects photo
abandoned at coin-operated photo booths. By the end, this is a weepie, but
it is most definitely also a comedy, a drama and occasionally a near tragedy.
It's a rare pleasure
to see a film where the parts blend so well that the finished result is so
perfect. The camerawork shows a Paris that is vivid and full of extraordinary
colours, almost a fairyland where Amelie is the lonely princess without love.
The comedy is subversive enough to satisfy the most cynical of tastes and
performances all round. Amelie is sure a chick flick movie but it's way too
different from the Hollywood chick flick movie we've ever seen. I really enjoy
watching this movie. I guarantee that this movie will put a smile on your face.
And you will sure to watch it numerous times.
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