The thought of watching a foreign film on the first day of class was almost unbearable! However, not even 5 minutes into the movie I knew this would be interesting. The comparison Stacy made between Jean Pierre Jeunet and Tim Burton was spot on. Jeunet did a fantastic job of creating this world that was part play, part short story, and part tv sitcom. Being a fan of British comedy made me feel at ease with the whole european comedy concept, until I realized the comedy in Amelie was similiar to many in America.
I thought the setting and the time of the movie was perfect. Remembering when Princess Diana died in 1997 in the fatal car crash was a very sad time, however, the glass man does freak out tired of hearing about Lady Di! Lady Di! Several scenes at Amelie's parents house had gusts of wind that seemed to make the scene seem realistic. In real life it's never always either sunny or rainy, the sight of the inbetween was more realistic and allowed me to put myself in that situation.
The lighting and camera angles were done extremely well. A scene that stood out to me was the movie theatre scene where Amelie admits she likes watching people's faces while they are watching the movie had a beautiful blue tint which made her already dark eyes seem black! However, the creepy gold lighting that lit up Amelie's heart and the old man out of happiness seemed completely random and left me thinking WTF? It ALMOST ruined the movie for me, if there were any more I would have stopped paying attention.
Last but not least, the BEST part of the movie were the characters! From Amelie right down to the creepiest photobooth maintance man EVER, every character was important to the story line. My favorite scenes were any that took place among the cafe workers because they seemed realistic, extremely weird conversation, BUT realistic! Amelie would often break the 4th wall and communicate to the audience in creepy yet cute little whispers about things she liked or facts she knew. The intent of Amelie to make a person's heart smile but not going after her own happiness was extremely real to me, and when she did find love was kind of dissapointing. She seemed too cynical about friendships or love that it would come that easy to her, so the fact she ended up with Nino in the end was nice and cute, but almost too cute for this kind of film.
Julia Andria
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I love your title, very creative!
ReplyDeleteExcellent first entry Julia....Your discussion of setting is good, isn't it interesting that the Glass Man yells at Lucien "Lady Di! Lady Di!" but then in the same sentence says "Renoir!". The Glass Man is also fixated on one individual, Renoir, and spends his life painting a new Renoir every year. This detail connects the two of them, both brilliant yet flawed. Every character in the film is flawed, or realistic as you say......
I agree that the use of special effects in the film does take the viewer out of the filmic world and draws attention to the movie as an artificial construct. In other movies like Lord of the Rings or Edward Scissorhands we don't notice the special effects as much because they are set in a fantasy world where the effects don't seem out of place, but this is set in seeming reality, and these instances feel wrong....but I do think they add a layer of meaning that wouldn't be there without them therefore I like their use. Thanks for posting...
Stacy