Amelie had a very sheltered childhood, with slightly eccentric parents and no friends to speak of she grew up to be a very introverted adult. As an adult she has a job as a waitress in a café, life is pretty mundane until she accidentally stumbles upon a tin box of a schoolboys long forgotten memories.
When she returns the box to the rightful owner and discovers the way it affects him she decides that her goal in life is to bring happiness to other people. Her new life brings on an unexpected twist however when she suddenly finds that she has fallen in love herself.
Review
If you’ve read the plot outline above then you’re probably thinking as I did, that this doesn’t sound like much of an interesting plot. I for one though, found out that I was completely wrong as I was totally drawn into this wonderful little piece of French Cinema. The film works for so many different reasons, the simplicity of the plot, the excellent directing, the captivating Parisian locations and the light-hearted humour to name but a few.
There’s nothing original here, but it doesn’t really matter as I simply lost myself in the film for the two-hour duration. This is particularly unusual for me with a film of this type as I quite often find it difficult to stay concentrating on subtitles. There were several instances when the film really surprised me with some of the directions it turned to. For example (possible spoiler) Amelie looks like such a sweet and innocent looking person and to see her walk into a sex shop was such a sharp contrast it’s almost disturbing.
I also think the film is a perfect example of how CG can be used very subtly to really add depth to a film instead of overloading it with effects. Quite often we slip into Amelie’s fantasy world where every TV program is about her life or the pictures on her walls talk to each other. These little CG scenes really help to help to give a feeling of what it’s like to live in Amelie’s world.
This film is such a refreshing change from the usual Hollywood releases and has certainly given me an urge to try out more French cinema and stop ignoring films simply because they have subtitles (yes, I am that un-cultured). I am certainly going to try out Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Delicatessen now.
Audio/Video
The video quality on the DVD is exceptional; the disk is presented in a 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen format. There are many scenes in the film that have very bold and vibrant colour, for example the Metro / Train stations scenes are always strong in different shades of green. The DVD copes with this flawlessly and there are never any signs of digital artefacts, scratches etc.
As with the video quality the audio quality on the disk is again superb. With a film of this kind you wouldn’t expect the surround channels to have much use. Surprisingly though, this is not the case. There are many elements of atmospheric sound from all channels that really draw you into the film as well as the wonderfully French feeling score from Yann Tiersen. The disk comes with a Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 track, but DTS is always my preference when available.
Extras
The only extra on this release is a
Directors Commentary from Jean-Pierre Jeunet. I personally enjoyed the commentary very much; it’s very light-hearted and full of interesting information on the film. The director is very critical of his own work when he comes to a scene that he doesn’t like or feels he could have done better. His English is very good and he only struggles to find words once or twice through the whole commentary.
The only thing I found distracting is the fact that the commentary is obviously meant for a future special edition of the DVD. The director regularly refers to deleted scenes, outtakes etc that are included on the DVD, unfortunately they aren’t.
The film itself is broken into 16 chapters and contains subtitles in English.
Overall
As you’ve probably gathered by now I enjoyed this film immensely and would recommend anyone to watch it. I also think that it’s one that you could re-visit many times and still get something new from it. The DVD itself delivers superb quality video and audio and a very nice director’s commentary.
It’s a shame that it doesn’t have any more extras, especially as the Jean-Pierre Jeunet talks about them in the commentary track. I would also have liked to have had the choice of a English dubbed audio track, just so that I could watch it once without the subtitles drawing my attention away from the on-screen action.
These comments aside, I feel confident in giving this DVD a very high recommendation. If the special edition does ever get released though, I will certainly be replacing my copy.