| |
SYNOPSIS
Amélie
Poulain (Audrey Tautou)
is a young woman who glides through the streets
of Paris as quietly as a mouse. With wide eyes and
a tiny grin, she sees the world in a magical light,
discovering minor miracles every day. A shy and
reserved person whose favorite moments are spent
alone skimming stones into the water, Amélie
was raised by a pair of eccentrics who falsely diagnosed
her with a heart problem at the age of six and so
limited her exposure to the outside world. Now a
free and independent woman, Amélie wears
a bob that curls in every direction and dresses
in red. With a job in a café and an aptitude
for spying on her neighbors, Amélie entertains
herself by enacting a series of homemade, kindhearted
practical jokes. She returns a long-forgotten box
of childhood knickknacks to its proper owner, she
sends her father's garden troll on a trip around
the world, and she creates a love connection at
the café between the hypochondriac druggist
and a beer-drinking old grouch. But when the day
is done, Amélie finds one stone unturned,
and decides to work her magic on the quirky object
of her affections, Nino
Quincampoix (Matthieu Kassovitz),
whom she has never met. Director
Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who codirected DELICATESSEN
and THE CITY
OF LOST CHILDREN
with Marc Caro) presents
AMÉLIE,
an aesthetically gorgeous and inventive film.
The rich, glowing color scheme is offset by flashbacks
in black and white archival footage that give
short biographies of each character. A soft-spoken
narrator guides viewers through this enlightening
fairy tale, which sometimes speeds through the
streets and other times drifts in slow motion.
AMÉLIE
is humorous, questioning, and strange, and it
will change the lives of all who watch it, if
only for a short while after leaving Amélie's
world.
|
SELECTED
REVIEW
Some movies are
so inexplicably funny and touching and sad all
at once that you want to cry out of sheer joy:
This is what The Movies are supposed to be all
about, magical, transporting confections of dreams
and hopes and kindness and true love -- all the
really important things in life -- stories that
are happy to dwell in a cotton candy-fantasy perfection,
in charming, carefree alternative realities in
which lovers' woes are the most pressing problems
in the world, and taking a chance on romance is
the meaning of life.
Disney's Beauty and the Beast
is the last film that made me feel this way.
And now there's Amelie.
"Times are hard for
dreamers," someone says in director Jean-Pierre
Jeunet's (Alien Resurrection) almost unbearably
wonderful new film. But you'd hardly know that
to look at Amelie (Audrey Tautou). A waitress
at the Two Windmills, a cafe in Paris, she is
content in her aloneness, and -- once a chance
discover sets her on the path of good deeds, and
naughty ones to those who deserve it -- happy
to be fairy godmother to those around her. She
sees the world through her own prism, which turns
Paris into a Disneyland unreality, the colors
muted like on an old postcard, without a trace
of big-city grime or ugliness -- which is how
most city-lovers see the object of their affection
and devotion. She's part of the crowd but something
of an outsider... like in the snippet of the news
story she sees on TV, of a horse that breaks loose
and joins a bicycle race, running with the riders
yet never one of them.
Tautou is delicate, fragile
as Amelie -- not in the physical sense, despite
many comparisons fans and critics have made to
Audrey Hepburn -- but emotionally, as we see when
she crosses paths with Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz),
an artist with his own sideways take on the world.
He, like Amelie, sees what others don't, the art
in discarded photo machine snapshots, and he sees
something in Amelie, too. And we begin to realize
that Amelie's way of seeing the world is more
a protection from it than anything else -- she's
been alone so long, it seems, that she doesn't
know how to make a connection any longer -- if,
indeed, she ever did, considering the initially
hilarious and in retrospect disquieting experiences
of her childhood that are our introduction to
her. Now, Amelie must face the confines of her
aloofness and dare to expand her own horizons
as she had those of friends and strangers alike.
Scratch the surface, and
Amelie (written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant)
is the same basic boy-meets-girl story Hollywood
has been telling us for years -- this may be the
least French French movie I've ever seen. But
it's the style in which that ordinary story is
presented -- Jeunet's wry, fantastical spirit
tickles your intellectual funny bone; the film
is breezy, witty, with a dose of snideness to
save it from saccharine -- that makes Amelie so
very delightful. And its simple celebration of
being alive, of enjoying fleeting life while we
can, gives it an uncomplicated joie de vivre that's
surprisingly rare on film.
Amelie is a chick flick,
sure, but it's a chick flick for gals who hate
chick flicks. Go for yourself, and then drag your
mom, your favorite aunt, and your best friend
back for a second viewing. They'll thank you for
it.
MaryAnn Johanson
FLICK FILOSOPHER
|
MEMORABLE
QUOTES
Amélie: It's better to help people than
garden gnomes.
Amélie: A least, you can't be a vegetable,
because even a artichoke has heart.
Amélie: [whispering in theater] I like
to look for things no one else catches. I hate
the way nobody ever looks at the road in old movies!
Georgette: Vive la France!
Hipolito (The Writer): Without you, today's emotions
would be the scurf of yesterday's.
Amélie: I am nobody's little weasel.
Narrator: Amélie still seeks solitude.
She amuses herself with silly questions about
the world below, such as "How many people
are having an orgasm right now?"
Amélie: Fifteen!
The Sacré-Coeur Boy: The fool looks at
a finger that points at the sky.
Raymond Dufayel aka Glass Man: So, my little Amélie,
you don't have bones of glass. You can take life's
knocks. If you let this chance pass, eventually,
your heart will become as dry and brittle as my
skeleton. So, go to him, dammit!
|
TRIVIA
 zz
The part of Amelie was
originally meant for Watson, Emily. She wanted the
part but had to decline because she didn't speak
French and had already agreed to be in Altman, Robert's
Gosford Park (2001)
The film has been digitally color-corrected at 2K
resolution.
Paris is a graffiti-ridden city, and the areas in
which the film was shot had to be cleaned and restored.
Director's Trademark (Jean Pierre Jeunet): [actor]:
Dominique Pinon
Yann Tiersen was not the original lineup for the
soundtrack. Jean-Pierre Jeunet heard the song for
the first time while he was being driven to the
shooting location.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet originally started collecting
the stories and memories in 1974.
The photo booth picture collection is based on a
real collection created by a friend of director
Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
The song played during Samantha's peepshow scene
at the porn shop isn't included in the film's soundtrack.
If you're looking for it, it's "The Child"
by Alex Gopher.
The artwork in Amelie's bedroom (the dog with collar,
the white bird) and her crocodile imaginary friend
are by artist Michael Sowa.
|
|
|
BASIC INFO
France, 2001
U.S. Release
Date: beginning
11/9/01 (limited)
Running Length:
2:00
MPAA Classification:
R (Sexual content, brief nudity)
Theatrical Aspect
Ratio: 2.35:1
Seen at: Ritz Five, Philadelphia
Director: Jean-Pierre
Jeunet
Producers: Jean-Marc
Deschamps, Claudie Ossard
Screenplay:
Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Guillaume Laurant
Cinematography:
Bruno Delbonnel
Music: Yann
Tiersen
U.S. Distributor:
Miramax Zoë
In French with subtitles
|
DVD FEATURES
Region 1
Keep Case
2-Disc Set
Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35
Audio
Dolby Digital 5.1 French
Additional Release
Materials
Audio Commentary 1. Jean-Pierre Jeunet Director
Production Interview 1. Jean-Pierre Jeunet Director
2. Cast & Crew
Behind the Scenes Footage
Bonus Short 1. THE GARDEN GNOME'S TRAVELS
Featurette 1. INSIDE THE MAKING OF AMELIE
2. THE AMELIE EFFECT
3. THE LOOK OF AMELIE
4. FANTASIES OF AUDREY TAUTOU
Music Video 1. Quai
Trailers
Audition Footage 1. Lead Cast
Interactive Features
Scene Access
Interactive Menus
Text/Photo Galleries
Filmographies
Poster Art
Film-to-Storyboard Comparison
|
KEYWORDS
dream-like, happiness, poetry, automatic-photo-booth,
ghost-train, glass-bones, jealousy, lady-diana-spencer,
local-blockbuster, love, mental-retardation, orgasm,
photograph, revenge, sex-shop, sex, stylization,
suicide, video, waitress, zorro, amusement-park,
bicycle, hypochondriac, lawn-gnome, matchmaker,
railway-station, subway-station, paris-france,
paris, shyness, narration, 1990s, compassion,
heartwarming, heroine, human-relationship, idealism,
innocence, justice, surreal, tearjerker, destiny,
fairy-tale, tabacconist, tobacconist
|
CAST
& CREW
Audrey Tautou
.... Amélie Poulain
Mathieu Kassovitz
.... Nino Quincampoix
Rufus
.... Raphaël Poulain, Amélie's Father
Yolande Moreau
.... Madeleine Wallace, concierge
Artus de Penguern
.... Hipolito, The Writer
Urbain Cancelier
.... Collignon, The Grocer
Dominique Pinon
.... Joseph
Maurice Bénichou
.... Bretodeau, The Box Man
Claude Perron
.... Eva, The Strip Teaser
Michel Robin
.... Mr. Collignon
Isabelle Nanty
.... Georgette, Two Windmills Cigarette counter
girl
Claire Maurier
.... Suzanne,
Owner Two Windmills bar
Clotilde Mollet
.... Gina, Two Windmills waitress
Serge Merlin
.... Raymond Dufayel aka Glass Man
Jamel Debbouze
.... Lucien
|
|
