Amélie (2001)

Film: Amélie

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Country: France

Released: April 2001

Runtime: 123 minutes

Genre: Fantasy

Studio: UGC, Canal+

Influenced: Michel Gondry, Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze, Michel Hazanavicius, Greta Gerwig

Amélie or, to give the film its full title, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, is a unique genre mix of fantasy and romantic comedy. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet had built a reputation for films with a singular visual style and quirky characters, such as Delicatessen (1991) and La Cité des Enfants Perdus (1995), and he took this novel approach to a new level with Amélie. The script was co-written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, creating a story that is full of whimsy and charm, including episodes drawn from the director's life. For example, the suicidal goldfish scene is based on a true story from Jeunet’s life, while many of the things that Amélie loves – cracking a crème brûlée with her spoon, putting her hand in a bag of grain – are things that Jeunet has professed to love too. The garden gnome in the film, which becomes a recurring motif, was based on an actual gnome stolen from Jeunet's garden. 

The film has one of the greatest introductions in all of cinema, an extended sequence featuring a voiceover narrative and highly innovative visuals that tell the story of the upbringing of Amélie and her eccentric parents. The plot revolves around Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou), a young woman who develops a vivid imagination to compensate for her lonely childhood. As an adult, she works as a waitress in a café in Montmartre in Paris, and the film makes extensive use of the Montmartre district, creating a sense of place and atmosphere that enhances the story. The film displays so much of the beauty of Paris, from its cafés and parks to its bridges and train stations, as well as one of my personal favourite places in the city, Rue Mouffetard. One day, Amélie finds a small tin box hidden in her apartment containing childhood memorabilia, and she sets out on a mission to return it to its owner. This act of kindness leads Amélie on a journey to anonymously help the people around her find happiness, while discovering love for herself.

Jeunet's film is characterised by vibrant colours, intricate set design, inventive camera work (especially the use of the Steadicam) and a beautiful sense of symmetry, all of which creates a whimsical and dreamlike atmosphere. The film is a feast for the senses, as best demonstrated in the scene where Amélie describes the world around her to a blind man. What’s surprising though is that the film was largely shot in the studio in Germany, with Jeunet making extensive use of CGI and green screens to create a fantasy version of Paris. Some of the animations, like Amélie dissolving into water, were inspired by the animation of Tex Avery, of Looney Tunes fame, and I also love the film's use of stop-motion animation and digital effects to give us an insight into Amélie's imagination. In one scene, a photo album comes alive, and characters in the photos interact with each other, a technique that adds a real touch of magic to the film. 

Amélie was a box office success in France and internationally, and received critical acclaim, including nominations for five Oscars, including Best Original Screenplay. It won several awards, including four César Awards in France, and also gained a dedicated international fanbase. To prepare for her role as Amélie, Audrey Tautou worked as a waitress for a brief period, and there is a quiet grace about her performance in front of the camera. The romantic tension between Amélie and Nino Quincampoix (Mathieu Kassovitz) leads to a beautiful love scene at the end of the film and a memorable closing sequence of the two exploring Paris on a motorcycle. We see how the lives of all the film's characters intersect and how the various acts of kindness that Amélie carried out, such as reuniting a photo album with its owner and helping her father realise his dream of travelling the world, eventually pay off.