Amelie

Rating:
Summary: This film is enchanting!
Review: Within a few seconds, I was hooked to the deliciously charming film Amélie. This French film is about a shy Parisian waitress who begins to help other people in life and finds that her life has changed in a very good way.

Amélie is a rather strange movie, but it's hilarious, dazzling, and ultimately one of the most charming films I've ever seen. You may be a little confused by the film as your eyes are glued to the subtitles, but the images really describe the movie so if you get a chance, look up!

Amélie Poulain is portrayed by the adorable French actress Audrey Tautou. Other things to look for in Amélie include the film's bright script, lush cinematography, and funny special effects showing pictures and sculptures coming to life.

Amélie is a great feel-good film which you will want to watch again and again and again. I would recommend this film to absolutely anyone, especially a movie buff. This is by far one of the 5 best films of 2001!

Rating:
Summary: Unique and super funny..........
Review: How can you not love Amelie. This movie was to die for with weird side stories that made you wonder and then made you laugh. I love french films. The french have to be the most hysterical people and the most dramatic.

Amelie is a simple girl looking after the people in her life while taking care of everyone elses love life and needs she stumbles on a character that rivals her uniqueness and has too meet him.

She devises an elaborate chase to meet and then its magic and light. The journey you take with Amelie is funny and touching.

Warning this is subtitled but french films are funnier and more interesting in french even if you don't speak french.

Rating:
Summary: My girlfriend's favorite movie
Review: This is my German girlfriend's favorite movie. She introduced it to me last year and I think it's great as well. I'm a big fan of Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children by Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro as well, Whatever happened to Marc Caro anyhow? Check out those DVD's if you get the chance. Hopefully their other movies will show up on DVD as well.

Audrey Tautou as Amélie Poulain s a severe cutie-pie and Mathieu Kassovitz as Nino Quincampoixi is fantastic.

My girlfriend took me to Montmartre in Paris a couple of years ago and it's even more beautiful in person than it is in the movie.

Rating:
Summary: What an imp!
Review: Amelie is an adorable imp, a cross between Audrey Hepburn and Bjork.She's a young Parisian woman who lives a solitary existence and finds the greatest pleasure in the simple things in life: cracking open creme brulee, skipping stones, scooping up handfuls of grain. She has devoted herself to improving the lives of others. In doing so, she initiates a wonderful relationship.The music adds more charm to the movie; I would like to buy the soundtrack! Wickedly funny things temper the charming innocence of this movie, i.e., Amelie's campaign of revenge against a vituperative grocer and bizarre footage of a peglegged dancer. It's a shame there aren't more movies like this one out there!

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Great Film
Review: Conservative speaking here, I thought I wouldn't like this film and find it offensive. I was wrong, I liked it a lot.

Great unique story, outshines domestic oversaturated romantic comedies.

Rating:
Summary: Not a "romantic comedy"
Review: Even if, having read the previous reviews, you are expecting something smarter and funnier than your average inane RC, you still shouldn't focus on either the romance or the comedy. Because, to my mind at least, they are not the most important sides of the story. Rather, the love-and-happiness quality of the film stems from a certain very serious philosophical attitude, exemplified most obviously by the Tour De France scenes, when past and present come together.

To repeat, Amelie he Movie does not try to be "heartwarming." It only HAPPENS to have that effect on those without an understanding of Amelie the Character's unique vision. (By the way, the "heart" root figures too often in the preceding reviews, as though the film's theme and goal is to show us How We Can All Be Nice To Each Other and flood the audience with sweet joy. It's NOT.)

Again, don't make the mistake of taking this for a just-about "family" movie. It's not light-weighed, it's trim like an athelete's perfected body. Instead, watch it carefully. The hints are all here. Notice the depth of difference between Amelie and her mostly likeable but ordinary acquaintances. Take note how she stands out against this background, invisibly playing with it, usually kindly, sometimes vengefully, all the while keeping a low profile.

Of course, to the casual viewer Amelie seems a wonderful, quirky, shy person basically not very different from everyone else. Ho. Right, wouldn't YOU like to believe yourself to be as free-spirited and deeply empathic, wouldn't YOU like to think that you, too, possess the same kind of instant intuitive insight, that you feel and understand life with the same acuteness? More important (this isn't about insulting you personally, dear reader, but about prying your eyes open) wouldn't you like to think that ALL people are like Amelie on some level, and that if only we could pay more attention to each other, life would change dramatically?

Well, forget all that. As we all MUST admit in moments of honesty, the great majority of people, and France is no exception, are not nice, or sweet, or imaginative. The average person anywhere is usually quite dull, stressed-out and self-concerned - whatever better directions his life might have taken in different circumstances. It's been mentioned that Paris of "Amelie" is not the real city with its problems. Well, of course it's not, and people in the movie are not "real" either - to anyone except Amelie and her friend/lover/comrade. They are creatures of a sharply different kind. In fact, the tinge of golden and pink that gives the cinematography here its special charm is an attempt to introduce the viewer to this special vision!

This is to say, we see the whole movie as though THROUGH THE EYES of Amelie. If it weren't so, the people around her would seem perfectly ordinary to you, dear reader. She, for her part, does not care for a whole cluster of concepts mundanes have, e.g. "reality," "living within one's imaginings" etc. Which is why the film is unafraid to use special effects even in its Monmartre scenes. It's no surprise, then, that the "realistic" ending with leaping into the sack seems not just disappointing, but also somehow unlikely. Having watched the movie, anyone begins to suspect that Amelie's life would be doomed to a (at least inwardly) dramatic and adventurous course.

In short, she is incredibly gifted to only partially belong to this dreary world, and equally gifted, not to mention lucky, to meet someone else of her kind. Of course, a psychiatrist deprived of their vision would think them both slightly deluded, and nearly EVERY person to have written a review on this site, too, is comfortably convinced of the same, even if it doesn't feel important. "Fantasy," "sweet," "fairy-tale" - those are keywords betraying just how remote most of the commentators are from understanding this movie (even if some of them words zero in on the truth in an uncanny way). The reason is, to understand something so personally-colored, it is necessary to either have had similar experiences or at least seriously CONSIDER the movie's message. "Amelie" is a rare example of "Air from other planets," of true art in popular entertainment, but if you refuse to put away your customary ides about what is real and so forth, all you will see on this DVD is a pretty, funny romantic flick. T.

Rating:
Summary: scattershot stylistic exercise
Review: It's surprising that a film like this could fool a large number of people into thinking it adds up to a charming love story. I hate to say it, but this is not a love story at all. Amelie isn't even a story, it's an exercise. The main difference between the two comes with flow and the editing doesn't allow that to foster a good story. The closest the director gets to telling a story in this movie is in the very beginning where Amelie is introduced and her dilemma is presented. The rest of the movie is about her solving this dilemma, but here is where the problem with the movie lies. The rest of the movie feels too processed and disconnected from the true moment of feeling that the characters are going through. Many times it feels as if the last 3/4 of the movie is simply filled with tiny bits and pieces of ideas that the director thought would be interesting enough. I don't believe that they are because the beginning prepared me for an odd love story although, I should've known that the plot would be constantly detoured in the beginning when the narrator reveals the ponderous questions that Amelie was wondering while on top of the building. Nonetheless, my lack of foresight doesn't make this film's lack of cohesion go away. Add to that the fact that the movie has a constantly strange production quality that permeates the film and allows us to know that strange things will happen instead of just letting the story be strange and surprising us with an interesting moment. The knocks I have about the production don't just affect the story, they sideline it by making it seem like the movie is simply about daft craftmanship rather than the tale at hand. I don't mind high style cinematography, especially by this director because I love his previous film "The City of Lost Children." That film had a strong story driving it's craftiness, this one doesn't. I only give it two stars because I recognize hard work on the visuals and I found some of the material humorous and/or dramatically effective, but this is an inferior film, story-wise to the aforementioned film and isn't really a romantic comedy because it's really hard to get past the directors reliance on technical proficiency over plot. It struck me that the film had a good story idea and not enough development to get through.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding, Unforgettable
Review: This film is absolute genius! I was completely shocked and thrilled to discover just how many layers of wit and intellect are involved in this movie. The acting is great, the plot is fresh and unforgettable, and the overall effect is brilliant. If you're looking for something new and exciting, and you're tired of the same old recycled storylines, plots, and jokes, try this movie out!

Rating:
Summary: "She cultivates a taste for small pleasures"
Review: Amelie is an extraordinary film, and this makes the ordinariness of its conclusion profoundly unsatisfying. Throughout the movie (known as Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain in its country of origin, France) the characters are presented as delightfully quirky - Amelie enjoys running her hands through sackfuls of grain; her father likes lining up his shoes and polishing them; Nino keeps an album of photos discarded by their owners - so the ending, where Amelie and Nino leap into bed together, just as would happen in any other movie, is a huge letdown.

The premise is simple: one day Amelie Poulain finds a small box of 'treasures', which would appear to have been hidden by a small boy 40 years ago. She decides to return the box to its owner, and if he is appreciative she will continue in her quest to help those around her.

One of the strengths of the film is that - much like real life - nobody is 'normal'. As well as being introduced to characters, we are also shown their idiosyncrasies and history. However, Amelie's running time of over two hours feels too long and one gets the impression that director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has attempted to fit too much into what is a light-weight movie.

It is also very funny in places, notably when Amelie takes revenge on an intolerant neighbour. It is interesting how we can, after an interval of five years, look back on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and recall with a wry smile how completely it consumed our attention at the time. Overall this is a charming and whimsical film (even if at times it is a little too aware of its quaintness), and certainly deserving of a more fitting finale.

Rating:
Summary: whimsical and story-bookish
Review: I was so pleased with this movie! It tugged at my heartstrings the way fables and fairy-tales do. Indeed, the glorious cinematography kept an illustrative hue to the entire film.

First things first, Audrey Tautou delivers a charming performance... she is much too-often compared with Audrey Hepburn, another small-faced gamine, but her aura is decidedly different. Where Hepburn was cool and chic, Tautou is childlike and imaginative. The film focuses a good deal on the colorful workings of her imagination and the fantasies it weaves.

The tone of the film perfectly followed with Tautou's exuberant performance: the colors are sparkling and vivid, the scenery is slightly dream-like, the shots are appropriately quirky and surprising. This is not the real Paris, this is a memory of Paris.

The narration and set-up of the films delightful cast of characters is very similar to The Royal Tennenbaums. I'm sorry to invoke a comparision here, but it is so striking that I have to say it. The narration is the kind you would find in a children's tale, and the characters are introduced by their likes and dislikes. Amelie approaches life with a wide-open fresh view that sees everything for the first time and the smallest of things are of the biggest importance.

Amelie spends the whole film trying to bring happiness into others lives in imaginative ways. Ultimately, she must do the same for herself. The film's message is an uplifting one of innocence and optimism. Fairy-tale like, destiny always seems to take a large hand, and The Glass Man is the fairy godmother (father?) of the film, finally bestowing upon Amelie the courage to seek out happiness for herself.

Viewers will find this lovely fable easy to relate to, as Amelie is such a fresh and unique character. We all have a bit of her spirit in us as well as her shyness to face happiness head-on.

There are lots of great minor performances in this which add greatly to the local color. Amelie's knuckle-cracking coworker and her paranoid boyfriend who stalks her at work and makes notes of her every move into a portable tape recorder... The sad concierge at Amelie's apartment who loves and hates her dead cheating husband... Amelie's cold, serious father who longs to travel but never will... All these characters are magically helped by Amelie who seeks to breathe new life into their simple lives.

This film will do the same for you. It is a joyful little modern fairy-story of chasing down true love when you find it.