Le Fabuluex destin d'Amelie Poulain

I had heard a lot of hype about this movie around the time of its release back in 2001. I never bothered to watch it as I thought it would be some arty French film. The poster for it had Audrey Tautou looking like some porcelain doll and didn't really make me think this was going to be a good film. But after being recommended to watch it from a friend, when it was on recently, I sat down and watched it all.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I loved the movie, right from the opening sequence. I've had a love of Paris after seeing some great panoramic photos of it by a French photographer. This film utilises Paris as a perfect backdrop to play out the adventures of Amelie. The cinematography is fantastic, with the colours kept ultra vivid to make it seem almost like a cartoon.

The acting from all involved is top notch, as far as I can tell anyway. I can't understand what they are saying but I could feel what they were saying through their tone, body language, facial expression. I totally love Audrey Tautou. She was wasted in The Da Vinci Code where she was merely used to help the story along while Tom Hanks was all the driving force. In this film, Audrey shows us all sides of the character Amelie and you can't help but fall in love with Audrey/Amelie.

The film basically revolves around Amelie and those in her life. Amelie was a reclusive child due to the overprotectiveness of her father. And when her mother died, her life became even more isolated. But one day, her life would turn around due to finding a box of old toys from a man that used to live in her apartment 50 years ago. Upon deciding to return the box and seeing how happy the man was, Amelie decides to get involved in the lives of those around her.

Amelie starts to help out her neighbours, such as the mentally challenged boy, the old lady missing her dead husband, her father, a hypochrondriac, a stalking guy, a writer and the old painting man with the brittle bone. The movie was actually very funny when it showed Amelie trying to help all these people through various scenarios. I found myself laughing quite a lot during the film. Some of the dream sequences are very funny as well.

The main story in my opinion though is Amelie helping herself while in the process of helping others. She learnt to trust others and become less isolated. She also learnt that one needs to take risks in life in order to find happiness. This comes to a head when she has to decide whether she wants to pursue this guy that she meets one day and likes.

The book of passport photos that she finds leads her to meet Nino who she likes. She sets up all these elaborate games to meet him. Eventually, she also helps him by revealing the mystery of a man who has taken his passport photo all over France. Amelie helps Nino to solve this mystery at last. That was quite a nice surprise in the film, the revealing of this mystery. It also made me laugh.

In the end, Amelie learns to throw caution to the wind and take a chance. She has leart to find happiness and the movie ends on that great high. I finished watching the film with a satisfied feeling. This is an uplifting movie and is worth repeated viewing to soak in more detail. I didn't even get to study the panoramas of that much as I was so absorbed in the story. I might even try watching the movie in French without the subtitles and seeing how well that works.