Amelie

(Go to full size to see the trailer)

Tay's Rating- :D:D:D:D

Interesting Facts:

-The main colors in the film (green, yellow and red) are inspired by the paintings of the Brazilian artist Juarez Machado.

-Audrey Tautou doesn't know how to skip stones; the stone-skipping scenes were made with special effects.

-With the exception of a brief phone call where Amelie gives instructions to Nino (who in turn simply listens and never gets round to replying verbally) the two leads do not exchange a single line of dialogue during the course of the entire film.

Review: From my Intro in Film class

Review for Amelie

The movie was very lovely and colorful. This was not my first time watching a foreign movie but this one was interesting because of the story plot and the back story. The meaning or metaphor of each character was unique. The color scheme was very different but similar concept to The Royal Tenenbaums. The opening credits were different than the ones I see in other films. The symbolism in the film has to do with many things. The back story and the idea of what’s Amelie’s doing in the movie.

I love Amelie’s character because she is very unique and has innovative cleverness, weird life, and misunderstood past. The opening credits explain all of that in the film. The opening credits were different than I usually see in the films in the past. It shows a woman giving birth, Amelie’s parents explained, her misunderstood childhood, and then it showed her currently life with what she usually does. The childhood part showed she was smart and curious so she did many things to understand. Glue on the finger, cutting little stick figures, played dominos, and rubbing her finger against the crystal rim to make sounds.

The symbolism in the movie have a lot with what’s Amelie’s doing. An example, the Glass man painting the group of people and each person has a story except one in the painting. The Glass man always trying to figure out what’s the person’s story but at the end, Amelie found her love and the Glass man figured it out. I thought that was interesting because Amelie’s life is a little different and the painting is changed into a different style of painting. Before it was similar to Claude Monet painting style and it changed into more drawing/painting shapes and animated look-a-like version.

The story plot was well done but a little confusing at the same time. I really liked that Amelie helped with those people with their past unanswered questions. An example, she helped with Madeleine Wallace. She lost her husband in the war I believe. Amelie found many letters from her husband she never gotten them until Amelie gave them to her. Another example with Nino Quincampoix, he lost his photo album and Amelie gave the album back and Nino wanted to know who the person was found it. When those two came together, they fell in love. This film, Amelie, reminded me of another film called Pay It Forward because of what she is doing and helping out.

The filming and editing was well done. I love the scene where Nino followed the blue arrows and at the end the camera zoomed with the telescope to Amelie. After Amelie ran away after she put the photo album into his bag, he ran to catch her. The editing was fast pace which is fits perfectly to the scene. The film used a lot of both high and low key lighting. Included a few scenes of directional lighting to emphasize the scene. There was many close-ups, panning, and zooming in and out too.