This is Matt. He hates handwritten signs in gas stations, pithy sayings on church marquees, and the small nick in his windshield that is directly in front of his right eye when he is driving. Matt likes removing the UPC sticker from new books, barn swallows that dance around him in the sky while he mows his lawn, and taking his shoes and socks off after work and wiggling his toes.
Today’s movie is Amélie, a French film released in 2001. It’s the story of a shy waitress (Amélie Poulain) in a Montmartre café. After anonymously returning a long-lost childhood treasure to a former occupant of her apartment and seeing its effect on him, she sets out on a mission to give joy to others and in the process discovers how she needs to give joy to herself.
First things first: this is a foreign language film. It’s subtitled, which I sometimes find to be distracting, but in this case I honestly didn’t notice it after the first twenty minutes or so. I’m a sucker for a good Director’s commentary, and in the commentary for Amélie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet mentions that he thought they did a pretty good job translating. Maybe 15% of nuances in the language are lost, but C’est la vie, you know?
With that out of the way, allow me to say that the film is, in a word, magnificent. Such joyous exploration of the possibilities in life. It begins with an unseen narrator describing the likes and dislikes of Amélie and many of the people who would affect her early life. My favorite is the dipping of her hand in sacks of grain. Speaking from experience, that’s something everybody should do at least once.
Audrey Tautou, in the role of Amélie, is charming. I wonder if the film would have been nearly as good with anyone else in the role. Mathieu Kassovitz did a marvelous job giving us a potential love interest who could match Amélie’s wit and quirky nature. The story has them indirectly engaging each other for much of the film, and when they do meet, it’s magic.
There is an unusually large supporting cast, and oddly enough, none of them are indulgent. All are necessary to tell the greater story, all of their little bits of story dovetail quite nicely into Amélie’s quest. For example, we have neighbor Madeline Wallace, whose husband left her for another woman and then died unexpectedly 30 years ago. Her apartment (what beautiful set dressing) confesses the life she’s lived since his death; cold, mournful, unchanged as she waits for the metaphorical other shoe to drop. He was the love of her life (she has the letters to prove it) and his betrayal struck a blow at her spirit. But before she had a chance to recover, to make peace with conflict of her feelings, he died, leaving her in a state of limbo. With him (and his mistress) gone, who can she rage against? Who can she hate? Who will explain how this could have happened?
“My life stopped that day,” she says. In a moment of melancholy, she tells Amélie that she was “born to cry.” In short, she is stuck. Thus Madeline becomes a recipient of Amélie’s quest to anonymously fix life’s wrongs, to re-light the fire that has been blown out.
Others would benefit from Amélie’s quest, and others still would take inspiration from it. Dufayel, the Glass Man, whose brittle bones have led him to a life of solitude, sees what Amélie is doing and performs the same service for two others. For twenty years, he has lived alone, passing the time by painting a new copy of Renoir’s Le déjeuner des canotiers each year. Interesting that Dufayel chose a painting with so much life between the strokes, in effect copying Renoir’s copy of life. But twice removed is too far and he begins to make small changes in his life, slowly getting involved in the lives of those around him.
Inspired by what Amélie has been doing, Dufayel befriends Lucien, assistant to the mean-spirited local grocer, teaching him to paint. Both actors deliver stellar performances both in their scenes together and when they’re apart. Serge Merlin (Dufayel) in particular has a stunning scene that left me weeping.
Looking back at what I’ve written so far, I’m making this out to be a sad, depressing movie. It isn’t. All of it is built in a world that mixes the imaginary with the real, the mundane with the outrageous. There are some wonderful effects that help lighten the mood and further the story. The film has a message, but the message is delivered with a bit of a wink and the caveat that the happy ending you’re looking for isn’t always assured (see Joseph and Georgette). It’s a film that leaves your soul cleansed and ready to rethink what you think you know.
This is Matt. He likes the film Amélie.
