Amélie

Amélie – 2001, Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Would I have liked Amélie more if I had seen it at the cinema in 2001? Probably.
It’s a lovely, lovely film, but it’s not perfect. I wonder if any of the critics who at the time described it as ‘Breathtaking’ and ‘...everything that’s wonderful about cinema.’ have changed their minds.

Watching it for the first time in 2010 I don’t think it has aged so well. Amélie has the same distinctive look of other films by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, but I think JP is too keen on the yellow/green/sepia look he always employs. Yeah it’s a visual style, his trademark in fact, but I think it’s overdone in Amélie. In the digital age, it’s very easy to apply a filtered colour to a film in post production. So there’s no excuse for being uneven. Though to be fair, Amélie was only released one year after O Brother, Where Art Thou, so at the time it was the ‘in thing’.

I suppose ten years is a strange age for a film. It’s long enough for those who saw it on release to say ‘my god, it’s ten years old’, old enough for it to feel dated, but not old enough for anyone to know what its’ legacy will be. Maybe Amélie will have as much influence as Jules et Jim. Maybe Jean-Pierre Jeunet is the next Francois Truffaut.

Most people who watch Amélie become completely lost in it JP’s dream like vision. If you don’t get drawn all the way in, it’s easy to think that the film begins to drag after the first 80 minutes or so, and that there are a few loose ends that could be cut away entirely without compromising the plot. A shorter, more focused draft of the story may have made for a better film.

But these are all minor issues about what is a very good film. I just can’t forgive Jean-Pierre for what he did with Alien Resurrection.