Friday 12 April 2013

Amelie - film review by Siti Sariha Sabana



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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