AMELIE (Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain)
Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
One of my favourite words in the English language is "whimsy." It's the most perfect of words, because it sounds exactly like the concept it describes. "Whimsy."
There's probably a word for this: logomatopoeia or something. Either way, it's a great word.
Amelie is whimsical, in the best possible way.
Amelie is the story of a lonely woman in a world full of lonely people, just waiting for the right person to reach out to. A chance encounter with a time capsule in the space behind her toilette sends Amelie on a mission to improve the lives of her coworkers, her father, and even a handsome stranger she meets at the train station.
The cast is made up of misfits or damaged souls of one form or another, from the elderly painter with brittle bone disease to the frustrated hypochondriac in the coffee shop. The title character is, perhaps, a little less nutty than the rest of the fruitcakes, but it's a close call. Amelie weaves in and out of these lives like a guardian angel in sensible shoes, but ultimately, the story is driven by her quest to win the heart of the handsome stranger.
Who, to be fair, is as big a freak as she is.
A narrative shortcut lets us see a bit deeper into the hearts of the cast. It comes across as a series of brief, if somewhat amusing tangents off the main story. While they might seem a little irrelevant at first glance, these asides serve a valid purpose: by showing us that these odd characters have very ordinary passions, they become less a bunch of dramatic clichés, and more people to
empathise with, very much like the rest of us.
The supporting cast is fantastic. Dominique Pinon (Delicatessen, Alien: Resurrection) gives a superb turn as a pathologically jealous lover. Jamel Debbouze is likewise brilliant as a greengrocer's assistant: a sort of Gallic Granville.
But the main attraction, of course, is Audrey Tautou. The best new actress that I've seen in a while (even better than Janice Beard's Eileen Walsh, or Tipping the Velvet's Rachel Stirling), she brings an impish quality to the role of Amelie: mischievousness, tempered by shyness. She's wonderful.
The film itself is about the most perfect film I've seen in five years. Jeunet's cinematic palette is well suited to this sort of fairytale. Oddly, I was reminded of The Matrix: the two most prominent colours in this film are bright red and a washed-out green. The same sort of washed-out green that defined the virtual world of The Matrix, in fact. And I think it gives Amelie the same slightly spaced-out feeling.
The contrast between the vibrant red and bleached green emphasizes the feeling that these are lively people moving through a mundane world, who are just waiting for the right person or people to reach out to.
Amelie is a beautiful film. Seamless, subtle CGI effects (and I mean seamless) and first-rate cinematography come together to produce this most wonderful of stories. Amelie is the sort of film that will have the same resonance for audiences across the world. Right up until an American studio reshoots it.
Amelie is an enchanting fairytale, a love story for the wallflower generation, and is without a doubt the best film I've seen this year.
Review Text (C) Matthew Craig
Originally published in the pop culture magazine Robot Fist