Amelie

With so many box office hits to behold at your local theatre, one often overlooks the quiet films that slink their way into the hearts of many. Director-Screenwriter Jean-Pierre Jeunet succeeds at making a visually and emotionally moving film that even crosses language barriers. Jeunet’s Amelie accomplishes a quiet impact that whispers quality over blockbuster.
Amelie Poulain is a young waitress living in Paris. She is a meek voyeur that enjoys the simple pleasures in life, like skipping stones and dipping her hand in bags of grain. Instead of mulling over her own loveless life, she focuses her good deeds on the people around her. This in turn gives her a sense of confidence that allows her to pursue her own love interest, Nino Quincampoix. Amelie is not your standard love story in Paris. It is the story of an awkward girl that is discovering life and love in the most unconventional manner. One may consider this film to be magical realism, for it continually displays magical elements in otherwise realistic settings.
The film begins with a biography of Amelie’s childhood. One of the first scenes is the young Amelie pressing her face against the camera and making funny faces at the omniscient viewer. This awareness of the audience lends to the unique approach that Jeunet takes in forming a close bond between the viewer and his characters. This awareness will repeat, but Amelie and Nino are the only characters that will acknowledge the viewer. As the childhood biography continues the audience quickly learns of Amelie’s lonely sheltered life. Her father, an ex-army doctor, only touches her during routine physical check up’s. As a result, Amelie’s heart races when her father touches her. He assumes that she must have a heart condition and concludes that she cannot attend school or play outside with the other children. Her mother, a nervous school mistress, home schools Amelie. She dies due to a freak accident when Amelie is still very young. The unbearable home life is only confirmed when Amelie’s pet fish attempts suicide by jumping out of his bowl on numerous occasions. To escape, Amelie nurtures an active imagination. Here the magical realism is introduced by showing Amelie playing doctor with her pet monster and imagining that LP’s are made like pancakes. The director brings a child’s imagination to life on film, setting the fanciful mood for the rest of the film.
The film takes a significant amount of time introducing each character with a quick biography and a short list of their likes and dislikes. The narrator even introduces a friend’s cat and states that its favorite thing is overhearing children’s stories. At this time Amelie addresses the audience as an adult while in a movie theatre by saying “I like looking back at people’s faces in the dark”. Here the audience begins to understand Amelie is a quirky young woman that prefers watching other people enjoy themselves rather than be concerned with her own happiness. In the following scene the camera pans over the charming skyline of Montmartre, and then lowers slowly to show Amelie facing out with her back to the camera. In this scene the audience sees Amelie’s connection to the world. Although she seeks solitude, she still desires to be a part of this world. As Amelie stands on the rooftop the narrator states that she wonders how many people are having an organism at this time. Amelie turns to the camera and answers “fifteen”. She once again addresses the audience and forms a closer bond. Almost as if the audience is one of her magical imaginary friends that is accompanying her in this story.
The turning point for the movie is when Amelie is stunned by the news of Princess Diana’s death on TV. She is so stunned that she drops her bottle cap which rolls away and hits a loose bathroom tile, exposing the lost treasure box. She discovers the lost treasure of a boy that lived in her apartment a long time ago. She vows to return the box to the owner. If he is delighted then she will become a “do-gooder”. After anonymously returning the box of treasures she discovers a sense of harmony and is delighted that she finds the owner happily overwhelmed. She continues her good deeds, which include helping a blind man cross the street. She proceeds to walk the blind man a few blocks, describing every detail and smell surrounding him. The blind man is literally enlightened. The camera pans from a heavenly angle and zooms down quickly on the old man looking upward. He then glows a radiant light, as if he’s seen enough now that he can die a happy man.
The most interesting relationship is between Amelie and her equally nosey neighbor, which they call the glass man. Mr. Dufayel (the glass man) is an avid painter that due to a rare disease is confined to the safety of his home. From there he becomes as much an omniscient viewer as the audience. In one scene Dufayel shares his current painting with Amelie. His is stuck on one girl’s facial expression in the painting and says “she’s in the middle, yet she’s outside”. Amelie responds “maybe she’s just different”. Dufayel then says “when she was little she didn’t play with other children”. Dufayel is implying that Amelie is the lost girl in his painting. This shows that his knowledge of her goes deeper than originally let on.
As the movie continues with Amelie’s works of good deeds the audience sees the transformation of her character from meek and voyeuristic to a more confident and involved character. Her path crosses with Nino, a fellow dreamer that works in a porn shop and collects discarded pictures from booths at the train station. Although they have never officially met, both characters share active imaginations and a fanciful theme in their lives. Magical realism is again displayed when the pictures of the dog and goose above Amelie’s bed talk about her while she’s sleeping. Nino also has talking pictures in his bedroom that tell him Amelie is his soul mate.
As the movie builds up to its climatic conclusion of Amelie and Nino finally meeting, the film displays creative ways of showing Amelie’s growing love. At one point when she almost comes face to face with Nino she actually melts before the audience’s eyes. This is a great digital effect that conveys Amelie’s desperation and love for Nino. In this same scene Amelie is standing right behind Nino in the café. The director has no camera movement in this scene, which shows that something is happening between them. “To move the camera would disturb everything” says cinematographer Delbonnel. It is as if time was stopping for the two of them in the café. After Nino leaves the café, Amelie rushes to find him at the train station. As she finally approaches him in the busy station she hesitates and turns around to face the camera with a look of complete fear on her face. When she turns around to continue towards Nino she sees that he is no longer there. The camera pans out to show that not only is Nino gone, but the entire train station is empty. This moment and use of cinematography reveals Amelie’s deepest fear of being all alone. A fate she is not willing to succumb to.
After some help from friends and coworkers, Amelie and Nino finally meet. And as all good Parisian love stories go, they surely live happily ever after. The closing scene follows Amelie and Nino on his motor bike down the streets of Paris. Both acknowledge the camera and Amelie gives one last content look back at the camera.