Director: Jean Pierre Jeunet
Stars: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Yolande
Moreau, Dominique Pinon, Flora Guiet
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Amelie,
a woman who are innocent and naives live in Paris, with her own sense of
justice, decides to change the world by changing the lives of the people around
her and discovers love in this romantic comedy fantasy from director Jean
Pierre Jeunet. She had a decidedly unusual childhood, her parent has believing
erroneously that she had a heart defects and prevented her from meeting other
children. Amelie did not attend school with other children. Thus, she developed
an active imagination and fantasy life to cope with her loneliness. After the
death of her mother when Amelie was eight and her father's subsequent
withdrawal from society. Amelie leaves home grows up lonely and alone as a
waitress in a corner bistro, until one day the death of Princess Diana changes
everything!
She will make people happy but not in a common
ways. So, she will amuse herself by devising the most extraordinary strategies
for bringing their happiness. She becomes a thoughtful, quiet, observant girl
who decides to change the lives of those around her, taking revenge on a cruel
grocer, bringing together a couple who are afraid to show their love 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?
This
romantic comedy movie was directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet in 2001 and had
achieved already become a massive hit in France by capturing the heart and imagination
of the audience with its eccentric and extraordinary modern-day fairytale
kindliness. At the very beginning of the film we hear the voice of the
narrator, rather like someone reading a story from a children’s book. The film
maker use the first few minutes to tell the audiences what type of film they
are watching by giving a visual and audio clues. Amelie is not a film that is
easy to categories. As an audience on what is taking place on screen encourages
me to watch further because there are a lot of question in my mind to be
answered. For example whether there are heroes in this film?
The
film can be described as a modern fairy tales. This is because the quality of
the uniqueness in the film regarding the elements of fantasy with reality. As the
audience, I never really know what will happen next. The story of Amelie is
very difficult to be predicted, for example is the way how Amelie wants to
return the Nino’s book without Nino can see her. The directors had highlight
about thinking out of the box, the plot of this film made we never sure whether
what we see will be part of the real world or fantastical in nature. The film
plays with the audience, tricking them into thinking about something has a
mystical quality but actually there is a very simple explanation. For instance,
the "ghost" who appears in so many of the torn photos is the photo
booth repairman.
Most of the characters in the film have a weird quality, which means they could
easily be part of fairy tale. These qualities can be seen on the way they look
and how they behave. Amelie herself is a main example of this quality. Although
she supposed to be twenty-eight in the film but she has a child-like character
about the way she looks and behaves. Her dress is chic but she wears shoes and
socks like a child. Amelie behaves throughout the film like the traditional
good fairy meddling in people’s lives to create happiness.
Amelie
is not a film that makes great use of background music. Most of the action is
set against a backdrop of silence. We can see the action in Amelie from
various viewpoints, but most frequently we are placed in the role of observer.
Moreover, there are the timeline was a bit unclear at times. On the other hand,
there were a few times when the movie is boring but there scenes attract the
audience’s attention. However as a whole this film is good for adult to open
the way of our thinking in the extraordinary ways. I will give five stars out
of five for this film because of the uniqueness of the film from the other film
that I had seen before.
Review by: Siti Zulaiha Binti Marzuki (1 SHAC)
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