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Language: French

Cast: Audrey Tautou

Direction: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Music: GOD! the French Accordions. Yann Tiersen IS GOD.

Reasons to watch: Watch for its screenplay. Watch it for its simplicity. Watch it for its shocking smoothening of cultural boundaries. Watch it to find a little bit of Amelie for yourself. This is a rare case where the movie is not an action flick, but goes very fast.

Reasons not to: Subtitles

Storyline: Amelie is the story of a girl who has an overly flamboyant imagination. She is a waitress at a cafe, and while tackling her own loneliness, her own fears, her own neuroses, tries to smoothen the creases in the world around her. She notices the smallest things. She targets the most mundane obvious details of life. She enables us reach for a cross-section of out own life. She meets lonely painters, curious collectors, ‘normal’ men, extremely taciturn men, and so many other marvelously painted and perfectly sculpted characters. She is a hypocrite at that; although she knows what and who it is, that will finally help her say, “This time, I will be free of my limitations. This time, I will free myself.”

Climax Handling: There are a million threads to the story. And they fall into one place and twirl together and make a huge rope out of themselves. Never better.

Points: Amélie: [to blind man] Let me help you. Step down. Here we go! The drum major’s widow! She’s worn his coat since the day he died. The horse’s head has lost an ear! That’s the florist laughing. He has crinkly eyes. In the bakery window, lollipops. Smell that! They’re giving out melon slices! Sugarplum, ice cream! We’re passing the park butcher. Ham, 79 francs. Spareribs, 45! Now the cheese shop. Picadors are 12.90. Cabecaus 23.50. A baby’s watching a dog that’s watching the chickens. Now we’re at the kiosk by the metro. I’ll leave you here. Bye!

Rating: 9.5/10

Comment: Please Watch!

Tags: academy award, amelie, audrey tautou, best foreign language film