Imagine for a moment a movie in which the heroine's primary love interest is introduced to the audience while picking torn pictures out from under a photo booth. He is a man who divides his time between working at a sex shop and as a skeleton in a haunted house - it's "Amelie."
From the opening credits, director and co-writer Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Delicatessen," "The City of Lost Children," "Alien Resurrection") creates an amazing and unconventional modern-day comedic fairytale that puts the Brothers Grimm to shame.
Jeunet has created a visionary fantastical masterpiece that can be compared as a light to his previous darker films. "Amelie" is as imaginative and finely crafted as his previous cinematic gems - excluding "Alien Resurrection." We are all allowed to make a mistake. The actor who plays the clown in "Delicatessen" also makes an appearance in "Amelie" as a lovesick obsessive. This is not the usual droll formula fantasy or romantic comedy - think of the colors of "Oh Brother Where Art Thou," the pacing of "Run Lola Run" and add a playful, offbeat love story.
Amelie (Audrey Tautou) is a refreshingly genuine, beguiling and mischievous heroine. After witnessing a box of childhood trinkets transform a man's life, she sets out on a mission to change the lives of neighbors and friends - for better or worse. Acting as a modern day cupid or Zorro crusading for the hopeless and helpless in love - she orchestrates the lives of those she encounters in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
Shot in more than 80 locations throughout Paris, the movie forces the audience into Amelie's vibrant, pulsating world as she makes her way in and out of people's lives, leaving them forever changed. For example, she rewrites a love letter to a widow from her long-lost husband, sending it under the guise that it was unearthed in a lost mailbag from a plane that crashed before he died.
Comedy is mixed with exquisitely sensitive and emotionally charged encounters, all shot in over-saturated colors and mixed with moments of fast paced action and intricate plot twists. Amelie enjoys the simple pleasures of skipping stones across the river, digging bare fingers into sacks of beans and the fast paced pursuit of an elusive good deed.
You can almost smell the aromas and hear the usually inaudible, such as cracking the crystallized sugar crust on the top of a cr¸me broule with a spoon. Your senses as a viewer become heightened while watching this film - you are privileged to intimate shots that are usually overlooked in modern cinema.
At one point, Amelie grabs a blind man and pulls him through the streets, vividly describing every detail of the surroundings to him; in essence, she becomes his eyes. The audience is dragged willingly and awestruck through this movie that is destined to set a new standard for romantic comedy.
Subtitles and French narration only add to the total immersion into Amelie's world and the mystery and charm of this movie. In a long tradition of cliches and been there, done that cinematic rehashing this movie shines as something completely unexpected and amazing. Once you enter "Amelie's" world, you won't want to leave.
