Amelie

Rating:
Summary: We need more movies like this.
Review: I started dragging my friend to see more indie and foreign films after spending a ton of money to see a rash of [bad] american films. Someone tipped me off to Amelie and we went to see it. Bravo for foreign films-- they're like a breath of fresh air! Amelie is no exception. She is endearing, sweet, innocent, and fun. Her good deeds are charming and pure. Yet you see a note of mischeviousness in her eyes. You wonder if she's actually going to ever get together with the guy (you know she will, but you still wonder). I walked out laughing and smiling and loving foreign films all over again.

Rating:
Summary: "Sweet?" "Pretty?" What were these people thinking?
Review: Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)

For the past two years, I have been reading reviews of Amelie that all have one thing in common: the word "sweet." I have no idea what film these people were watching, but it wasn't the twisted little minor gem I saw on Sunday night. "Sweet" may be the last word I'd have come up with in trying to describe it. I should have had more faith in the brilliance of Jeunet. (Of course, all of these same people persist in describing Audrey Tatou as anything from "pixie-like" to "gorgeous," as well. I found her rather disturbing-looking, as I find everyone in Jeunet films.)

Throw the other reviews out and listen to me, will you? Amelie is the story of the title character (Audrey Tatou of Venus Beauty Institute), and there's actually precious little story. It's more a slice-of-life thing, during which she does such things as befriend a man with Osteogenesis Imperfecta (Serge Melin of The City of Lost Children), try to set up some of her compatriots at work, torments the local grocer Collignon (Michel Robin, presently onscreen in America in Merci pour le Chocolat), and lead a hopelessly lovestruck guy from her grade-school class (Matthieu Kassovitz, from Jakob the Liar) on a wild goose chase to discover her identity. None of which is all that sweet a thing to do, really.

Jeunet's usual twisted sense of humor is evident here, and it rears its head often in visual clues (think Police Squad! for a more highbrow audience). The wit isn't as dry as usual, and thus the movie doesn't have as many laugh-out-loud funny points as Jeunet's finest film, Delicatessen. That doesn't make it unwatchable, but it does pale in comparison. Just be prepared to find a movie filled with subtly disturbing (especially in their appearance) people that will leave you scratching your head and wondering "what in the world was all that about?" ***

Rating:
Summary: Why not a 5-star movie?
Review: Simple: there's no French subtitle. Although I don't speak French but my french speaking friend told me that the dialogues are a lot more than the simplified English translation. Watching this movie makes me want to learn French and what better way to learn it than from learning what they are saying in Amelie?

Rating:
Summary: Better every time I watch it
Review: I've seen this movie three times, and it's interesting to note what I thought of the movie each time. At first viewing, I thought that this was one of the strangest films I had ever seen. It was beyond different -- it forged an entirely new trail in moviemaking. At the end I thought to myself, "well, that was interesting."

Then I viewed it again on DVD. This time I began to appreciate the subtle storyline, and the brilliant colors on screen. I began to relate to the character(s) more.

The third time I saw it, I finally understood why this movie got such high reviews and praise from critics. It is a work of art, a classic, that should adorn the shelves of any DVD collection. If anything, get it because it's in French, and you'll look more intelligent than the average one-language-only American.

Rating:
Summary: I'll change your life!^__^
Review: Amelie is a young Paris waitress who fined an old box of childhood. At her apartment into floorboard. Almost this film as a magical. When she meet an intriguing young man named Nino.

This film of director named Jean-Pierre Jeunet. He is so famous in French. He is a genius of the dark films. Usually he made his space of the mysterious imagination. I loved his ideas and his darkness. I'm crazy fan with his films. I watched his all films even old films.

But this film is a so brought and colorful plot. When I watched this film, little disappointed, I thought Jean-Pierre's film were almost darkness plots. But it was break down my ideas. So this film was more shocked and fresher.

can I change your life?

Rating:
Summary: Pretty girl finds a boyfriend -what a magical miracle..
Review: There's something about european films which make me feel more kindly torwards Adam Sandler.. maybe I go from insane hatred for him to just bitter contempt. At least Adam Sandler WANTS to entertain you though. It's not just two hours of artsy, self indulgent fluff. But about Amelie..

It wasn't completly awful. There are a few laughs, but they take to long setting them up and they are too far between for such a long movie. The actress is a sort of pretty, female version of Rowan Atkinson. I think if the movie had concentrated just on her and her life and been much shorter, then I might have enjoyed it. Unfortunatly, the main character is left very lightly developed and most of the other characters are almost less than stereotypes. The director only gives Amelie maybe three expressions and shoves down our throats how waifish and charming she is and how sympathetic and sorry we should feel for her. Halfway through the movie I felt myself wanting an insulin injection. The movie mostly spends time dispensing threadbare lessons about LIFE!, LOVE! and ART! (there were moments in the movie were I could imagine the art house crowd nodding their heads and saying 'so true, so true'). I guess it was more important than developing actual characters. I felt the atmosphere of French kitsch (I guess that's what it was) a little suffocating. I think the American equivalent would be like being stuck in a big parking lot filled with hot pink and aqua blue 57 chevys, each one containing an Elvis and Marily Monroe look alike.

You'd think you could count on a European movie to have a clever or ambivalent or at least deppressing ending, but Amelie can't even do that. The writer can't even think of anything for the two lead characters to say once they do get together- they just skip straight to the sex. And this is supposed to be a romantic movie! How is this man any different than the facelss man Amelie is shown [fornicating with]of the movie?

1.49 stars

Rating:
Summary: Amelie is the best movie ever created
Review: Of all of the movies i've seen, this would have to be the the best one ever. I love this movie; the actors are wonderful, it is beautifully directed, and the story is outstanding. If i could only own one movie, this one would be it.

Rating:
Summary: Girls are really like this
Review: Although I didn't really care for the stylized look of the Amelie character or the perky French music, I loved the story. Girls really do things like this! It's true. There are people out there who just find pleasure from random and not-so-random acts of kindness and mischief.

Rating:
Summary: A colorful look inside a beautiful world
Review: From the very beginning, Amélie shows itself to be different from the predictable, irritatingly obvious American movies that I have grown to abhor over the past years. Its opening sequence, the retelling of the salient points of Amélie's childhood (according to her delightfully skewed view), draws the viewer into her sweet little world with its clever script and beautiful cinematography. We learn all about her parent's small quirks; her father, for instance, hates the feeling of wet swimming shorts sticking to his legs but thoroughly enjoys polishing his shoes to a deep shine, while her mother detests the wrinkled hands that come from bathing too long while finding great pleasure in empting out and reorganizing her purse. Amelie lives in a world where everyone can be categorized by such small but vitally important facts, and every little deed has its own reward.

Amélie spends her days in two activities, for she is both a waitress and a doer of good deeds. A decided introvert, the heroine delights in interesting ways of relating and interacting with the world which might not occur to the more literal minded. Much of the film is spend detailing the whimsical ways she discovers and carries out the most fantastical wishes of those unrecognized worthies that live around her. And in the midst of her small philanthropic acts, Améile thinks about about the mysterious man whose photo album she acquires when it falls right off his pannier, and plans how she might get in contact with him. The end, of course, is no surprise to anyone except Amélie; though expected, it lacks not one bit of charm, and the seducer becomes the seduced in a beautiful turn of roles.

The Paris shown is not a gritty city but rather the City of Lights as the dreamers might see it, and the enhancement of reality is perfect for the new view of the world it gives. We might see the world through Amelie's eyes, and thank goodness for it: I never knew the world could look this bright, nor the colors so sharp and dazzling. The little integration of computer animation that does occur is both unexpected and seamless, delighting in its whimsical nature. This movie is a treasure from all perspectives, and I look forward to seeing both past and future efforts from director Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

Rating:
Summary: This is already an evergreen
Review: This masterpiece of cinematografy is destined to become an evergreen. In a hundred years ppl will still speak enthusiastically about this marvelous film.

One odd detail:
There is not a single cussword in the whole movie, a brief moment of nudity maybe but that is all. It is refreshing to find a gem like this for a change.