Amélie

Amélie is a french foreign language film about a shy waitress in Paris. It is a sort of a romantic comedy. Amélie was brought up by her farther after her mother was killed by someone jumping off a roof to kill them self and landing on her mother! She was home schooled so didn’t have friends. She learned to think in a different way and used her imagination to entertain herself.

When she grew up she moved to Paris and got a job as a waitress in a bar. She tried dating but could not achieve an orgasm so instead took to getting her kicks from other things. She likes to skip stones and is constantly on the Hunt for flat stones, also she loves to sick her hand into a sack of grain and crack the top of a creme brulee.

One day she discoverers a hidden box of childhood treasures in her apartment. She determines to find the boy that it belonged to and give it him back. After a few failed attempts to find him she does and sets up an imaginative way of giving it back to him with out him knowing it was her who gave it back. This sparks an idea in her that makes her want to meddle in peoples life’s with out them knowing. Her first victim is her father! She steals his Nome that takes pride of place in his wife’s shrine. On the way back she misses the train home and ends up sleeping in a photo booth. In the morning she meets an man who is acting suspiciously. He sees a man and starts running after him Amélie gives chase, he drops a book and she picks it up.

She starts construction elaborate plans to see him and give the book back to him. But is to shy to revile herself to him. He works out who she is in the end and they live happily ever after!

My favourite quote is probably ‘Times are hard for dreamers’

Obviously a lot more happens in this film the scenes with the butcher are probably among my favourites. And the man with the glass bones plays a big part of the film. Her dad as well getting the pictures of him nome on holiday and the hypochondriac waitress at the cigarette counter and the over bearing regular of the bar falling in love after Amélie meddles is highly amusing.

I love this film, it has a special feel to it almost cozy. It’s funny and heart warming as most romcom’s are but it’s done in a clever way. It is also a nice change to see a female protagonist chasing a man for a change and sweeping him off his feet. The acting is superb and I like the way that Amélie breaks the fourth wall from time to time to speak to the viewer. It gives you a sense of being the voyeur that coupled with the shy demeanour of Amélie as if she is being watched at all times gives you a sense that you are part of her journey. It’s very clever directing.

5 garden nomes on holiday out of 5