It is written...

Michael Kera

Everything happens for a reason and the setting affects the characters. The story actually starts when the boy, Dominique Bretodeau, places the box behind the panel in the bathroom. Every event that happens to Amelie has a reason. When her parents did not show her affection she reached out to Nino Quincampoix. The car crash she witnessed while taking photos led the man to scold her that when she takes photos accidents happen. Once she learned that was not true it led her to seek revenge on him. Later on in the movie, Lucien, could not stand up to his boss so Amelie played pranks on his boss to make him question his sanity. When Lady Di died Amelie dropped a ball and it rolled into the bathroom knocking the panel loose. If the little boy had not placed the box into the hole her whole journey of helping people would not have resulted in her falling in love with Nino. Every time she tries to meet with Nino something comes in the way. During her first encounter he chases after a man and by doing so drops a book containing pieced together photos of people from photo booths. Before giving the book back to him she plays a game with him having him following arrows to binoculars to watch her place the book into his bag. On another encounter she leads him to a photo booth, but before she can get close to him a cart with luggage stacked high on it drives by and she misses her opportunity. Finally he comes to her apartment and they finally meet.

The Cinematography was quite interesting. There were a lot of steady-cam or crane shots I enjoyed. At first I thought they were using a dolly but they did not have the typical movement of a dolly. One example is when Nino chases after the man in the red sneakers Nino exits the train station and is immediately stopped by the priests walking by. At this point the camera is ahead of the two actors moving backwards. As the shot progresses Nino passes the men and runs up some stairs and the camera goes up into the sky. One of the scenes I was not sure about was the one following this shot. We see the man in the red sneakers get into a blue car and Nino still running after him. The car pulls away to reveal a motorbike that Nino gets on and drives away. The shot is continually moving forward, moving into the bike petals and then moves in the same direction as the action. Once Nino drops the book the camera keeps it in frame and does an arc around it to reveal Amelie picking it up. As she does the camera moves up with the book. The next scene is a pedestal like move where we see roof tops and the camera moves downward to reveal Amelie far back in the frame reading the book. Then we move in closer and eventually fly over her head so we can see what she is seeing. All together the movement of the camera worked well with the story; it was subtle and not jarring to watch.

The part that I really enjoyed about Amelie was the fact that she clearly broke the 4^th wall by talking directly to the audience on several occasions. I found that to be acceptable. Then at the end of the movie when both Amelie and Nino are on the motor bike they both looked directly at the camera and acknowledged it was there. I was startled and confused but decided I liked it because the whole movie is about her world and now Nino is part of it.