Amelie movie

French acclaimed filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet is the creator and director of the romantic comedy Amelie. The majority of the movie’s events take place in France, and it was first released in 2001. Initially, the film was titled d’Amelie Poulain until it was altered to Amelie (Jean-Pierre n.p.). Guillaume Laurent and Jean-Pierre Jeunet are the film’s writers, and they also wrote the scenes. The dialogue of the movie was also written by Guillaume. The story of Amelie, an oddly introverted girl, is told in the movie. Amelie comes to understand that compassion is a form of love. She realizes that she can still feel satisfied just by helping the less fortunate people in the society.

The death of Princess Diana sends chills to the bones of people, and the whole world is grieving. Due to the death, Amelie’s life changes forever in Montmartre, Paris. The death of Diana, however, is crucial because, through it, something is revealed to Amelie. She is shocked by the death which makes her drop the perfume stopper, which upon its fall on the floor tiles, it cracks it. The crack exposes a tin filled with toys buried very many years ago, and this is where the first instance of Amelie showing love begins. Instead of selling the tin with its contents, she decides to look for the owner, who at present is no longer a child anymore but rather an adult.

Amelie manages to get the man who once as a boy, was the owner of the tin with toys. The man’s name is Dominique Bretodeau. Amelie leaves the tins with him, and she goes her way. Through the discovery and meeting Amelie, Dominique’s life also changes completely. Dominique was initially a cruel man who did not love people including his close relatives. The show of love by Amelie is, therefore, the principal contributing factor to his change of thought. Amelie’s life is that which is full of compassion. She decides to become the Good Samaritan. She gets a job at the café, and here, she fixes many people’s lives, she also describes the beauty of the world to a blind man while they are walking in the streets. Amelie further inspires her father to go on a vacation and see the beauty of the world yonder. Despite the fact that Amelie appears to be so concerned about the lives of others, she cannot help herself. She wants love, and already she has been attracted to Nino, the photo collector, but still, she is too shy to tell him what she feels about him. Nino loses one of his favorite albums and Amelie helps him to find it. Nino, however, is so perplexed about this wonder girl who seems so loving and attractive though too timid.

Back at home, Amelie has a neighbor, Mr. Dufayel, a man with the brittle bone syndrome and cannot walk out of his apartment because of his condition. This man convinces Amelie to go after Nino and stop being scared. Amelie builds the courage and this time round, she does. Fortunately, Nino also comes to Amelie’s apartment, and she opens, instead of closing the door due to shock, she pulls him into the house and kisses him.

While summer in the city of Paris approaches the end, there is a new look of everything. Everyone who Amelie had helped appears to be a totally different person. For example, Amelie’s dad goes on a vacation after being inspired by his daughter to go and see the world beyond, somewhere else, Mr. Bretodeau reunites with his grandson whom he did not want to see. Amelie and Nino have fallen in love. The film ends with a romantic scene, a scene of accomplishments achieved by Amelie through her love and inspiration to people.

The main themes that the director of the film, Mr. Jean-Pierre, has explored have been brought out by the main character, Amelie. The three main themes explored through Amelie include; childhood, innocence, and outsider. To begin with is the theme of outsider where Amelie due to lack of childhood love from the parents and loneliness, can be considered a total outsider. There are some internal conflicts that throughout the film, Amelie appears to fight. She engages in the conflict of loneliness and lack of acceptance. This is evident by the fact that she is not so free to express her feelings to anyone due to lack of assurance of whether she will be understood. The director has also brought this theme through the relationship between Amelie and Nino. Amelie loves Nino but is too fearful to let him know. She organizes several meetings maybe with the intention of letting Nino know that she has something in her heart. However, Amelie is helped finally by her neighbor who encourages her to face it and tell Nino about what she feels about him. Mr. Dufayel is also another outsider to the world. He has been so lonely in his apartment but gets comfort when he talks to Amelie. Both of them are insiders when together but the moment they leave one another, they become outsiders surrounded by their daily difficulties of facing the real world.

The theme of innocence has been brought out in the film through some techniques. The film itself is set in Paris which is considered an innocent city where racism and cruel realities of poverty have been excluded. Although the story is set in 1997 when Princess Diana died, it is digitally manipulated to represent the new Paris. The main aim of this was to make the viewer have a feeling of innocence in everything being set out in the film. The theme of childhood has also been depicted by introducing Amelie fast as a child. The flashback to Mr. Bretodeau’s childhood is another technique through which the theme has been enhanced in the film. Childhood as a theme has been used to show that although people grow, there are certain childhood traits that are never shed off. For example, Amelie grows up a lonely girl who is an introvert. The character of being an introvert stays with her, and that is why she gets it hard expressing her feelings to Nino.

Considering the time setting of the film, the plot has a definite timeline. Most of the events take place after the death of Princess Diana, which occurred on August 31, 1997. Although the setting was in this year, the time has been manipulated almost to represent what occurs in the today’s world. The entire film takes place in a span of nearly 30 days but within this duration, so much has happened and many people’s lives have changed. In the real world, such occurrences would take a longer time to be accomplished. The film has, however, manipulated time to cover all the incidents within the one month period. The death of Princess Diana is the main turning point of the film.

The director of Amelie used various techniques of film editing to convey the story, one such edit is continuity editing where short pieces of the storylines are used to create a logical and smooth flow of the film as described in Chapter 8 of “Looking at Movies” by Barsam and Dave. Additionally, sound effects have also been employed in the film. The director of the film employed intensively both natural and artificial sounds in the production of the film. Sounds and silence, for instance, in the scene where Amelie finally meets Nino in her house have been used to convey the message of love and romance. As the two are kissing, there is silence which signifies that finally, Amelie had found the peace she had been looking for. Music has also been intensively used primarily the somber music to show Amelie’s emotions especially when she was depressed.

Works Cited

Barsam, Richard, and Dave Monahan. Looking at movies. WW Norton & Company, 2015. Accessed on June 30, 2017 from https://digital.wwnorton.com/movies5

Jean-Pierre, Jeunet. Amelie. 2001. Accessed on July 1, 2017 from https://usa.newonnetflix.info/info/60022048/s