When this movie first came out, I was still living in Paris, my home town. There was a lot of positive buzz about the movie. As French critiques are usually not tender, I was expecting to see something great. I must say I was disappointed. Point taken, the movie is really pretty and cute, and happily creative. But I was expecting some more depth to it, as any REALLY good comedy should have. The problem with this movie is that it embraces an overly rosy, advertisement-like view of life. There is no question that it succeeds in this exercise, but you get out of there with the numbness of an empty mind.
The aesthetics of the movie is very close to what I consider to be one of the best commercials EVER, namely the 1993 CNP (a French insurance company) TV commercial by Lars von Trier (yes, the one!). That commercial represented a little boy first carrying his violin, then growing older, marrying, having kids, and the next generation, and so on. All the people in the commercial are very happy and the grain and the light and the colors of the movie are strikingly close to those used in Amelie. Also the very alert pace of the action (no time to get bored!) is common between the CNP commercial and Amelie.
Now, why is this comparison a critique for Amelie? As I have said, I consider that commercial to be really wonderful, but AS a commercial. I have no criticism against a commercial being really sleek and cute and happily creative. But a good movie cannot stop there! So if you see Amelie, as I see it, i.e. as a sophisticated version of a commercial, promoting Paris, the happy life and so on, you cannot possibly give it the highest value as a cinematographic work of art. It deserves at most a 7 out of 10.
The aesthetics of the movie is very close to what I consider to be one of the best commercials EVER, namely the 1993 CNP (a French insurance company) TV commercial by Lars von Trier (yes, the one!). That commercial represented a little boy first carrying his violin, then growing older, marrying, having kids, and the next generation, and so on. All the people in the commercial are very happy and the grain and the light and the colors of the movie are strikingly close to those used in Amelie. Also the very alert pace of the action (no time to get bored!) is common between the CNP commercial and Amelie.
Now, why is this comparison a critique for Amelie? As I have said, I consider that commercial to be really wonderful, but AS a commercial. I have no criticism against a commercial being really sleek and cute and happily creative. But a good movie cannot stop there! So if you see Amelie, as I see it, i.e. as a sophisticated version of a commercial, promoting Paris, the happy life and so on, you cannot possibly give it the highest value as a cinematographic work of art. It deserves at most a 7 out of 10.
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