“Les temps son durs pour les rêveurs.” Le Fabuleux destin de Amélie Poulain can be presented as a movie for dreamers. For me, Amélie is a movie worth watching over and over. With unique perspective, meaningful colors and active music, it becomes an instant classic. In fact, Amelíe is a great movie.
First, we have its perspective. Amélie is told in a childlike way. Jeunet centers our attention in childish details. Amélie likes to throw stones into the river; an old man likes to cut circles to his plants. Even more, the association of a certain detail to each character becomes its picture for us. Nino becomes the guy with the photo album, The Glass Man becomes the man with the painting, just as a kid would associate. And how does a kid visually look at the world? With vivid full colors. The movie colors are very saturated, just as in the child world. Amélie robes are bright red or green. There are no midtones in the scene.
As a matter of fact, colors are meaningful in Amélie. Each color has strong, specific meaning. Blue for example, represents happiness through love. When Nino goes to the park looking for Amélie, he is carrying a big blue empty bag, waiting to be filled. Then Amélie invites Nino to follow the blue arrows, the happy direction towards love. Colors create atmosphere. Both in the grumpy man home and in the one of Amélie’s father, there is absence of color. Everything is sepia. Those man inner children are gone. In contrast, Amélie apartment is almost completely red. It talks about warm, affectionate beings in there. Colors represent a lot about our protagonist. Amélie will usually be portrayed in green for her usual and familiar moments and in red for the ones when she displays her inner pleasures and dreams.
Finally, the music in Amélie is an active participant. The whole mood of each scene is sustained on its music. Without the music we wouldn’t felt so sad about Amélie just before Nino enters her apartment. The rollercoaster the blind man went through when Amélie took him to the metro. At the end of that sequence, the man looks to the sky as an unreal divine tune is displayed. The exaggerated accents measure the importance of actions. The sound little Amélie hears while playing with her ears, the deep crack of the mischievous key, the pumping of Amélie’s heart the first time she sees Nino.
Amélie is a childish told story, full of amazing colors and vivid music. It gets to you and reminds you another way you used to know of looking life. This movie leaves you with a sweet scent and an innocent sight.
