Always wanted to watch Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain a.k.a. Amelie (In English) and I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity when I found out that it was playing on UTV Movies this afternoon. I had heard only good views about Amelie to date. Ranging from cute to beautiful to good fun. At around 1830 hrs this evening, I joined that fraternity because everything that I had heard about the movie turned out to be true. In fact I think even my mom had seen the movie and enjoyed it. I know I know. Its embarrassing when your mother sees a movie before you do. Who is the amateur movie critic by the way. But then most of you would be surprised even further to hear the movies that I haven’t seen to date. Quite a few well known names. So its not really surprising that I missed out on the #45 movie on imdb’s Top 250 of all time.
Raphaël (Rufus) and Amandine Poulain (Lorella Cravotta) are your average ordinary everyday couple. They are married because…. They are married. They go about their day to day lives focusing only what they like and avoiding what they don’t. Nothing too exciting. They have a daughter, Amelie who like any other child craves for the love of her parents which is anything but forthcoming. Now they don’t hate her or anything of that sort. They are just too pre-occupied with their work. So, Raphaël’s interactions with Amelie are limited to the monthly health check ups – he is a doc. And when he suspects that Amelie has a weak heart, both parents decide to school her at home. And that’s how Amelie grows up. Protected.
Amelie (Audrey Tatou) is now 20+ and works at the local deli. She is going about her life as always – an introvert. A twist of fate helps her discover a metal box in her apartment which probably belonged to the previous tenant. She starts the arduous task of finding out who they were, tracks him down and delivers the box to him in what would seem like a sheer coincidence. The happiness that she sees in him on getting his small toy cycles back after so long compels her to think about how she can get other people to get happy as well. And it so that Amelie starts her journey towards becoming the “Godmother of the outcasts, Madonna of the unloved”. On this journey she gets even with her dad for having ignored her, helps her neighbor who suffers from brittle bones, helps the helper at the local vegetable vendor, makes the Vegetable vendor suffer for being rude to the helper and is attracted to someone who she has only seen outside a polaroid photoshop @ the East Station in Paris.
Amelie is a beautiful representation of an otherwise regular story. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet it is a fabulous example of brilliant cinematography and screenplay which come together to make it much better than it actually is. The cast on display is also very good led by Audrey Tatou (Da Vinci Code) who plays the introverted and scared Amelie very well indeed. Nominated for the Best Foreign language film in 2002 and 4 other Oscars, it lost out to the likes of Lord of the Rings, Moulin Rouge & Gosford Park. I haven’t seen the Bosnian film, No Man’s Land which won the Oscar in the foreign language film category but I am quite sure it would have been superb for Amelie to have lost out (made mental note to watch it when possible). Amelie is also probably the first example of a Romantic Comedy that I have seen nominated for the Oscar. An indication of how well the movie has been made. Its been 10 years since its release but I enjoyed catching up with it. Watch it when u can. Playing on UTV World Movies these days. A clear 8 on 10. Oh and its a French movie by the way. So ensure the DVD has subtitles.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2330460441/
Raphaël (Rufus) and Amandine Poulain (Lorella Cravotta) are your average ordinary everyday couple. They are married because…. They are married. They go about their day to day lives focusing only what they like and avoiding what they don’t. Nothing too exciting. They have a daughter, Amelie who like any other child craves for the love of her parents which is anything but forthcoming. Now they don’t hate her or anything of that sort. They are just too pre-occupied with their work. So, Raphaël’s interactions with Amelie are limited to the monthly health check ups – he is a doc. And when he suspects that Amelie has a weak heart, both parents decide to school her at home. And that’s how Amelie grows up. Protected.
Amelie (Audrey Tatou) is now 20+ and works at the local deli. She is going about her life as always – an introvert. A twist of fate helps her discover a metal box in her apartment which probably belonged to the previous tenant. She starts the arduous task of finding out who they were, tracks him down and delivers the box to him in what would seem like a sheer coincidence. The happiness that she sees in him on getting his small toy cycles back after so long compels her to think about how she can get other people to get happy as well. And it so that Amelie starts her journey towards becoming the “Godmother of the outcasts, Madonna of the unloved”. On this journey she gets even with her dad for having ignored her, helps her neighbor who suffers from brittle bones, helps the helper at the local vegetable vendor, makes the Vegetable vendor suffer for being rude to the helper and is attracted to someone who she has only seen outside a polaroid photoshop @ the East Station in Paris.
Amelie is a beautiful representation of an otherwise regular story. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet it is a fabulous example of brilliant cinematography and screenplay which come together to make it much better than it actually is. The cast on display is also very good led by Audrey Tatou (Da Vinci Code) who plays the introverted and scared Amelie very well indeed. Nominated for the Best Foreign language film in 2002 and 4 other Oscars, it lost out to the likes of Lord of the Rings, Moulin Rouge & Gosford Park. I haven’t seen the Bosnian film, No Man’s Land which won the Oscar in the foreign language film category but I am quite sure it would have been superb for Amelie to have lost out (made mental note to watch it when possible). Amelie is also probably the first example of a Romantic Comedy that I have seen nominated for the Oscar. An indication of how well the movie has been made. Its been 10 years since its release but I enjoyed catching up with it. Watch it when u can. Playing on UTV World Movies these days. A clear 8 on 10. Oh and its a French movie by the way. So ensure the DVD has subtitles.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2330460441/
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