Genre: Comedy / Drama / Romance
Length: 2h 2m 0s
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Tagline: She'll change your life.
Plot outline: Amelie is looking for love, and perhaps for the meaning of life in general. We see her grow up in an original if slightly dysfunctional family. Now a waitress in central Paris, she interacts curiously with her neighbors and customers, as well as a mysterious Photomaton-image collector and one of his even more mysterious photo subjects. Little by little, Amelie realizes that the way to happiness (and yet more subtle humor) requires here to take her own initiative and reach out to others. Summary written by {xaviermartin@hotmail.com}
Comment: You'll either fall in love with this film or you'll be driven insane. Personally, I was one who fell in love with it. Amelie is about a strange young woman who is in love with the interconnectedness of the world. Her life is nothing special, but it gets better when she's helping other people feel wonderful. There is a downside, though. She doesn't just do this to be a good person. She finds that she can only communicate with the rest of the world indirectly. When Amelie finds a man in whom she has an interest, she finds that she can only play games with him from a distance. When the time comes to approach him, she can't. Right now, I'd like to use Amelie to dismiss the German director Tom Tykwer. He directed two of the most pretentious films of the last few years, Run Lola Run and The Princess and the Warrior, both of which have a huge following. The themes and interests of these three films are very similar. The difference is that Amelie does not take itself seriously. It's fluff. It's fluff and it knows that it's fluff. All of Tykwer's inventiveness - never mind that it's never at all very innovative - is for nothing. He thinks he's changing the world and the face of art. By knowing its limits, Amelie warps far beyond Tykwer's films. And since it is not pretentious, it's much easier to love. It has no real depth, but it is wonderful and fun. Therefore, a lot of people are going to hold this close to their hearts, considering it one of their favorite films. They're going to introduce it to other people, and it will have (it already has) a much-deserved cult. Enough of the anti-Tykwer rant. I assume that a lot of his fans will like Amelie, and a lot of Amelie fans will discover and like Tykwer, no matter what I have to say about it. One more reason why Amelie is wonderful: Audrey Tautou, who plays Amelie, simply is loveable. She's the most gorgeous thing to come from France since Anna Karina. When this is released on DVD in the U.S., I'm going to buy it and watch it a lot just to stare at Ms. Tautou (oh, please let it be "Ms."!). May her career continue and blossom! Okay, the final paragraph of the review is reserved for complaints. They are small, but they exist. The film does become too much after a while. It's not as bad in that way as the similar Moulin Rouge!, but it can put some strain on the eyes at times. There are also a lot of loose ends, and pieces that don't seem to make much sense. I think that the filmmakers were just being so inventive that they left some of the corners untidy. My biggest complaint, though, is the abundance of sex in the film. That sounds childish, but let me explain. Amelie would be the perfect date movie, if not for the "I wonder how many people are having an orgasm right now?" scene, the strip tease scene (toplessness isn't as taboo in Europe), and a multitude of dildos in the sex shop scenes. The film is one of the most unabashedly romantic films of recent years, but those sexual scenes pop up every once in a while randomly and for no real reason. The film can't really be called an "adult movie," with adult themes (it's an escapist, romantic fantasy), so these scenes are all and only detrimental. This film would also be an ideal film to introduce subtitles to teenagers, but, for the same reason, that might prove controversial. All in all, though, the film is a near-masterpiece. 9/10.
IMDB Rating: 8.8
Country: France
Language:
Subtitels: No ()
CDs: 0
| Quality: | Video (?x? @ ?.?? [[unknown] ?kb/s]) | Audio (?Hz ?bit ? chan. [[unknown] ?kb/s]) |
| Actors: | ||
| Audrey Tautou | as | Amélie Poulain |
| Mathieu Kassovitz | as | Nino Quincampoix |
| Rufus | as | Raphaël Poulain, Amélie's Father |
| Yolande Moreau | as | Madeleine Wells, concierge |