1. Oscar J Buendia
Film History 2
Dr. Mirrer
April 23, 2012
Amelie
Film Slug:
Amelie - 2001
Comedy/Fantasy/Romance
Director- Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Writers- Guillaume Laurant
Stars- Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz and Rufus
Storyline:
Amélie is a story about a girl named Amélie whose childhood was suppressed by her
Father's mistaken concerns of a heart defect. With these concerns Amélie gets hardly any
real life contact with other people. This leads Amélie to resort to her own fantastical
world and dreams of love and beauty. She later on becomes a young woman and moves
to the central part of Paris as a waitress. After finding a lost treasure belonging to the
former occupant of her apartment, she decides to return it to him. After seeing his
reaction and his new found perspective - she decides to devote her life to the people
around her. Such as, her father who is obsessed with his garden-gnome, a failed writer, a
hypochondriac, a man who stalks his ex girlfriends, the "ghost", a suppressed young soul,
the love of her life and a man whose bones are as brittle as glass.

2. Amelie is French film that is very creative and artistic. The film brings comedy
and humor into film very early on as it later develops into a love story. The main
character Amelie is very lively in the film and her expressions are mainly through body
language, she goes from shy to being a more extroverted person. The film overall has
very good cinematic shots and ideas. American’s have always had a problem with foreign
films and that is because they have sub titles.
This text talks about the use of color, is the film monochromatic? Or does have
many color? This film is very artistic and has many colors, bringing warmth to every
scene. The colors are essential and go hand and hand with the themes and emotions of the
film. Amelie does this very well, and I think foreign and in particular French films are
very good at this.
The film was made in 2001 and it’s based on that time period. The time is
portrayed well, but what even helps out the most is the location in which the film was
shot. Since it is a French film the movie was shot in Paris, but the locations used were
large open roads that characterize Paris, this helped give the film that warmth feeling.
The time was portrayed great when Amelie found the toy box left by an old tenant who in
flashbacks reminded him of winning all he marbles in his school when he was young.
The showcasing of classic toys or that era was very accurate.
The NY times article on Amelia gives the director praise because of the hypnotic
sense of humor that it carries throughout the film. Also the article goes through the
importance of the city of Paris being the perfect location for the film, and how the colors
help capture the characters emotions at different scenes.
In the journal article it talks about Amelie finding her soul mate Nino who is a

3. marginalized fellow as well. The article goes into more detail talking about the editing
and cutting of the film, saying that they could’ve done a better job because the middle
gets a bit draggy and certain parts with pranks could’ve been taken out. The article gives
these suggestions that could’ve made the film better, but I believe the film is fine the way
it is. To me that’s just the style of the film.
Amelie in my opinion was a pretty good film, I enjoy films of that style because it
allows the mind to dream. The director does a great job in creating a romance, and
making sure that she casted actors who had great chemistry together. Foreign films and
special French films don’t usually transition well into America, but this film has captured
the American public and continues to do so and honestly there is a reason for it. It simply
just a masterpiece in the art of Film.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211915/
http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/esearch/article_display.jsp?
vnu_content_id=1000696665
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?
res=9B03EEDD1130F931A35752C1A9679C8B63&pagewanted=print