![]() There are a few other moments in which Amélie looks directly at the camera, and these are almost always moments in which she is doing something covertly, such as subtly sabotaging Mr Collignon’s apartment, or making an important reply letter to Nino. We, the audience, however, do not pose the same sort of threat of intimacy.Īmélie whispers to us in the cinema partly because she does not really have anyone else, but also partly because here in the darkened theatre, we can easily be kept as just another little part of her secretive life. Her interaction with the people around her, and her inability to connect fully with even the people she likes, is limited. Whimsy is basically all we have and, through Amélie’s rose-and-green-coloured-glasses, romanticising one’s own life is admired as a worthwhile mission.Much of Amélie’s lonely young life has been imagined, and as an adult she has become eccentric, creative and playful – but also introverted, and isolated. ![]() That desire to record the acute, miniature, and beautiful pleasures within our 5km radii. As the world is cautiously opening back up and Amélie turns 20, I hope we don’t lose sight of our own rusty little boxes. Amélie and Nino’s love language is twee scrapbooking and anonymous photocopies she invigorates her father with Polaroids of his beloved garden gnome travelling the world. It’s only through art and scrappy, nostalgic bric-a-brac that any of the characters in Amélie ever manage to connect. All that’s left of your childhood fits in a rusty little box.” “To a kid, time always drags”, he tearfully realises. And her apartment’s former resident is shaken when reunited with a childhood collection of seemingly insignificant souvenirs. Her Manic Pixie Brittle-Boned Housebound Neighbour (not such a popular trope for some reason) is constantly trying and failing to capture the essence of the most inscrutable character in a Renoir painting. I’m not irritated by Amélie but on rewatch only a couple of the characterisations hold any true, poignant dimension.īoth involve old men rediscovering themselves through Amélie’s romanticising eye. Whimsy is often seen as empty or superficial at best: at worst, it can be downright cloying. Jeunet’s camera will often pause in its movements to track Amélie as she bends to pick up a perfectly skippable stone. Because of her shyness, however, Amélie is able to exert a magical realist control over the world that vexes everybody else. In a world of adults that act like overgrown children, she’s just one of the quietest, steamrolled by obnoxious co-workers and foes. Tatou manages a soufflé-light balance between introversion and longing. The film begins with one angelic act of kindness and devolves into obsession, visions of martyrdom and a lavish state funeral she’s unable to stop herself from setting up one cutesy obstacle after another to keep crush Nino (Matthieu Kassovitz) safely at arm’s length. Unlike the waifish love interests who better suit that term, Amélie is painfully aware that her life revolves around helping others find meaning. Recently I’ve felt the boundaries of daily life shrink to close in around me, making the whimsical and trivial feel much more substantial than I’d like.Īudrey Tatou’s titular waitress isn’t quite a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, despite that iconic pixie cut. They stop feeling quite so stupid and little after a week or 11. When you can only go for one stupid little mental health walk per day, and line up for your stupid little overpriced coffee? Or worse, do nothing but watch a visiting bird at your stupid little window that doesn’t open? Trapped somewhere between spontaneity and rigid order throughout 2021, without finding any joy in either of those extremes, all the small things really did make life worth living: Blink 182 was right. Or maybe that’s just me, drawing from my recent experiences coming out of hotel quarantine. The very choice of intimate, sensory pleasures all seem to speak to our hygiene-focused, distanced state. Turning in a crowded cinema to watch the audience’s faces as they react. Silent kisses applied to a stranger’s face and neck. In fact, Jeunet’s focus on the small stuff feels (sorry) More Important Than Ever: just check out the very un-COVID-friendly nature of our protagonist’s favourite human experiences.ĭipping one’s hand in a sack of beans. But, in the paraphrased words of Brenda Lee, isn’t that all there is? In this defensive spirit we celebrate the 20th anniversary of Amélie, as an enduringly lovely film that uplifts life’s little pleasures as the very meaning of life itself.
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