Whimsical brilliance (Amelie (DVD))

Member Name: radams

Product:	Amelie (DVD)
Date:	30/01/02 (129 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very funny, In a class of its own

Disadvantages: None

Quite simply, the most unusual, touching and enjoyable movie I have had the pleasure to see during the last year. No, in the last 10 years. It’s quite unlike anything else you have ever seen, and is very difficult to describe, but I’ll try...

The plot is incredibly simple. Amelia (played by Audre Tatou) is clearly a strange, impetuous young girl, and we see snapshots of her early family life (there’s a great shot where she has a raspberry on each finger, and promptly gobbles them all up). Dysfunctional, perhaps; odd, yes – but there’s an overriding sense of contentedness about her character.

She is a waitress in a café, who discovers a peculiar pleasure in trying to help other people in very small ways (sometimes it’s the small, trivial, things that make so much difference to people, and Amelie recognises this). She is also without a boyfriend, and would like to meet one. And that, in a nutshell, is the plot.

What follows is a selection of unusual events, many of them engineered by Amelie herself, and all of them have a unique purpose (which we often don’t realise until later). I don’t want to give any of it away, but there are some very, very funny scenes (I will always laugh every time I see a garden gnome from now on).
There are many well observed scenes which concentrate on the details of life (from the odd framed pictures in Amelie's bedroom, to the thought that at any one time 14 couples are having an orgasm).
There’s a lovely ‘Frenchness’ to the scenes, whether it’s the café, the greengrocers shop on the corner – all of which make me yearn to visit France again.

The movie is directed by John-Pierre Jeunet, who also directed “Delicatessen” and “City of Lost Children”.
This movie has broken the record for the biggest grossing French language film ever released in the US (set in 1978 by La Cage aux Foll
es). Oscars here we come!

I only have to think about Amelie, and it makes me smile all over again – a movie to see, and cherish.

Summary: