The
Beautiful and the Surreal in Jeunets Amélie
by Cat Richert
I
continually fell into an inarticulate nightmare as I tried to explain
to friends why they should see Amélie, Jean-Pierre Jeunets
latest film. Granted, the cinematography is an excellent combination
of trendy, rapid-fire shots and classic close-ups that force you
into Amélies seemingly tiny Parisian world, and Audrey
Tautou, who plays Amelie, is beyond talented and adorable; these
facts were easy to explain. Amélie is so layered with meaning
that these single-facted despcriptions hardly do it justice.
Amélie is one in a long line of surrealistic films from Jeunet,
who also directed City of Lost Children and Delicatessen. Keeping
with the mystical, but none of the eerie and often bizarre motifs
found in his other films, Jeunet proves successful in creating a
creolization of subtle humor and utter beauty.
As a child, Amélie finds herself in the precarious situation
of being the product of not one, but two neurotic parents who deem
her too sickly to go to school. Lacking love and attention growing
up, Amélie leaves home with a well-cultivated imagination
and a fierce sense of independence to Paris, where she becomes a
waitress. After finding an old memory box in the walls of her apartment,
she becomes determined to find its owner and bring unexpected happiness
into his life. She is successful, and decides to become everyones
savior.
A particularly fabulous scene involves Amélies split-second
decision to guide an old blind man through the streets of Paris.
She crosses the street, grabs his arm and proceeds to give him a
play-by-play description of the quotidian life around them. Jeunets
directing is particularly successful in this scene; his ability
to move the camera along as quickly as Amélie is describing
these multiple visions allows the audience to feel the same surprise
and amazement that the old man must be experiencing as Amélie
steers him quickly down the street.
Amélie feels a great sense of satisfaction in her clever
plots to create happiness, yet always works under a mysterious veil
of anonymity. She bewilders her boring, garden-adornment obsessed
father (played by Rufus) by sending his beloved lawn gnome on a
world tour.
On her altruistic adventures in Paris, she continually runs into
Nino (played by Mathieu Kassovitz) who is usually searching for
ripped photographs under photo booths in Metro stations. Amélie
inadvertently falls in love with the photo kleptomaniac. As she
resists these feelings, Amélie is finally forced to accept
her inability to allow herself happiness. Indeed, Amélies
failure is universal and natural; her love of everyone brings her
happiness, yet she finds accepting love impossible.
Throughout the entire movie, the woman next to me found it important
to comment out loud that the movie was cute. I wanted
to hit her. But there was some truth in her needless verbiage. Indeed,
Tautou is painfully cute, and portrays Amélie as such. However,
the real success of Tautous acting is her ability to play
multiple roles at once. Not only is Amélie loveable in her
innocence, but, as she realizes her own weaknesses, she is equally
as touching. Yet Tautous does not transform Amélie;
rather, she convincingly portrays the very human need to remain
innocent and playful while becoming emotionally secure at once.
A comparably strong performance is given by Rufus, who plays Amélies
father. Although we only run into this strange character a few times,
Rufus does an excellent job of portraying Amélies father
as distant and confused. Rufus make the eccentric countenance of
the father seem utterly normal. He and Amélie play well off
each other; the more aloof and oblivious he becomes to his daughter,
the more pained yet determined she is to make him happy.
Ultimately, the film proves to be subtly humorous and delightfully
clever. Tautous superb acting and Jeunets innovative
directing push the plot to a most lofty place. Because Amélie
speaks so eloquently to a situation most find themselves engaged
in, the audience not only likes the movie for its dialogue and aesthetics,
but loves it for justifying the universal human weaknesses and strengths
that Amélie embodies so gracefully.
Amélie
is now playing at Cobblestone Cinemas off Interstate 90 in Sheffield.
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