Tuesday, June 20, 2006

#9- Amelie- Jean-Pierre Jeunet- 2001

"Without you, today's emotions would be the scurf of yesterday's. "


This is by far the most beautiful movie ever shot. Amelie, aside from the perfect romantic comedy, is a magnificent feat in cinema. The story of a woman trying to do good in the world, yet can't do good for herself trying desperately to make connections with the outside world turns into an imaginitve moving painting. Thanks to the direction of Jeunet, the film moves as if the paintbrushes are swirling the colors around in a beautiful portrait of the happy-go-luck main character of Amelie Poulain (the magnificent Audrey Tautou.) The depth of this movie breaks he tradition of most films that try to do the same thing. A romantic comedy that moves beyond just romance and brings up philosophical issues as well. It's hilarious and I feel it is the perfect romance. Rather than just romance for the sake of romance, we actually connect with Amelie and hope she succeds in finding her love. It's such a happy story with a touch of bittersweet.

The main reason I love this film is the look of it. Based on a classical painter, the way the films colors are brought out are saturated in green and red with one focal point of blue in almost every shot. It's brilliant. Also, this film holds some of my all time favorite shots. The scene where Amelie skips stone at the edge of a waterfall as shown here is an amazing shot. It looks like it is straight out of a dream. Everytime I see this shot, I quiver with its brilliance and beauty. Also, the scene in which Amelie shows the blind man through the market is uplifting. When the blind man glows at the end as if he has seen for the first time just through one person describing what things look like is so life fulfilling and great that I can't help but become filled with joy along with the poor soul.

The innocence of Audrey Tautou's face brings so much to the table for the character. Amelie is filled with quirks, as every character in this film is. She has these small facial expressions that are so great in adding depth to a scene that it's no wonder I am madly in love with the woman and wish I could meet her someday to give her a big fat kiss and thank her for her amazing acting. That aside, the characet of Amelie is so accesible that anyone will fall in love with her watching the film.

If you need something uplifting, get this film as it is one of the most enjoyable and uplifting films I have ever seen. And for me, I can fill my cheesey romance and brilliant artistic film love in just one place.

3 comments:

Sara said...

I really wanna see this now.

leo said...

Nothing to say about the last two except: GOD YES. Two fantastic films for different reasons.

Here's an interesting story, though: my friend works for the Zucker Bros.' production company, which is pretty sweet for him, and they're producing Jenuet's next film, The Life of Pi. Pie? I don't know, it's a popular book.

Anyway, he tells me that they're really pissed with Jenuet, because he's taking out all the references to religion in it and making it more psychological. To this I said, "Uh... what's wrong with that?" But apparently that's a big part of the book, and people who love the book will be upset. So they say.

I'm thinking this will be like one of those Kubrick movies where it's radically different from the book but it looks awesome anyway. If you don't read the book, you'll think it's great (also similar to Vonnegut movies). After all he's done, how can you doubt the man??? That actually made me more excited for it... but of course, it raises the chance of them dumping him.... which let's hope doesn't happen...

Paul Tsikitas said...

Originally M. Night was doing that film, but now he is just one of the writers. He was dumped from directing already.

Jeunet will be the only director to pull off a movie with a kid in a boat filled with animals.