Expectations kills many a movie. Thats what happened with my experience with Amelie. With all the critical backing that this film has received over the year, I felt let down from the it. It looked more a case of confused storytelling than anything else.
Amelie is the story about a little girl raised by neurotic parents in a weird and lonely household. She grows to be a lonely and introverted child not connecting socially. In her twenties she has no boyfriend or even friends. The movies tells us that she gets her thrill/ happiness from little things like skipping pebbles in a lake. she works in a cafe as a waitress.
Her life takes a turn, when she discovers a long lost metal box hoarding a child’s treasures. She decides she would find its owner and return his childhood treasure to him. After some difficulty she DOES find the old man, who is somewhat as lonely as her and anonymously returns the box. The man is thrilled and touched, and he connects not only with his long lost childhood but also his grandchild.
Amelie feels she has unraveled her calling in life. She finds her own happiness in spreading happiness in people around her. And so it goes on.. Somewhere in between when she is doing her thing she meets Nino, a porn store clerk who has a hobby to collect and collage discarded snapshots of people at the automatic photographic booths. There in starts an almost ‘cat and mouse’ game where Amelie and Nino express their feelings in a puzzle kind of way.
I guess viewed without the weight of all the expectations of watching a hugely-loved AMELIE, this is a nice small feature. It has some amazing cinematography and stylish narration. It sometimes goes into tiny details about secondary characters that are amusing. The narration is swift and smooth, we are never tied to a situation. Plus the number of secondary characters made by her Cafe staff and regulars, the neighborhood folks is large, and Amelie also tries her bit to help these people. Sometimes these miny sub-plots turn comical, reminding us of Tom and Jerry.
I have to summarize that Amelie isn’t the movie I want to watch again. Inspite of its lighthearted narrative and some amusing subplots, this one doesn’t work for me.
