The contrast
between the typically marketed, cliché, money-making, often repulsive and over
glorified productions of Hollywood, and the strongly developed, emotionally manipulative
and artistically crafted films of French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, is fairly
strong to say the absolute least. While it’s not to be mistaken that there are
plenty of professional American films, as well as many indie films, which have recently
increased in popularity on multiple video hosting websites, that strive for
artistic beauty and creative depth (and most of these succeed to some degree
and in some manner), it seems that the majority of films that have recently received
strong support and sponsorship from the media and other powerfully influential
yet biased sources. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of reenactments of
extremely cheesy dialogue, unrealistic plot progression or outlandish
scenarios, and the spamming of special effects which are all strongly present
in most big-budget American action films. Sadly, these features seem to feature
the qualities of a contagious virus, in that they are now spreading to genres
where they do not belong, where intriguing plot and artistic attention should
be a strong focus, not neglected inferiors to “action, explosions, death,
blood, gore, guns, action, blood, people running, action explosions and more
action.”
Having
established a sliver of my distaste for movies founded on such things (for
truthfully, even action movies could successfully incorporate value beyond
mindless entertainment while still retaining genre essentials), I must say that
Amelie did an excellent job of taking seemingly insignificant details and coating
them with attractive values so that they ultimately proved more worthy of far
more respect than the most “epic” (a nauseatingly abused term) scene in an American penny-pinching cliché Hollywood
action film. Not only was this accomplished in a sense of establishing dynamic
tones, but it was also accomplish in a bit more literal sense, more
specifically, with the use of color grading. I noticed that most of the scenes
were enhanced with a sort of golden overlay that seemed to contained hints of
green and red. These warm colors reflected optimistic emotion and comfortable
atmosphere, as warmth tends to do when applied properly. Without these colors,
the tone of certain scenes which relied more on visual demonstration than
verbal interaction would have been less successfully articulated in the way
that the director probably wanted.
The story telling of
this film was intriguing in that it relied on the presence of a narrator who
remained otherwise insignificant to the plot. He explained sub-plot details (as
well as extraneous information) in a swift, factual and often quirky manner that
highlighted boring occurrences with a sense of value. Often times, there were
large cuts in clips as to summarize small details in a fluent manner, and this
ultimately added to the film’s quirky nature as well as it provided the notion
of plot progression through storytelling, rather than in real time. The
balances between time spent at each segment of Amelie’s life were proportionately
fair, as they allowed for the explanation of key background information without
taking away from key focus points, and the inclusion of specific details from
the histories of less significant characters allowed for several areas of
connection between said characters and the audience. I appreciated the
attention to settle characteristic details that are often foolishly neglected by
many story tellers, despite that the forming of (even settle) connections between
a story and its audience is almost always vital to the creation of a
successfully entertaining work of art.
Based on evidence that
this film articulates with beautiful and underused techniques, I believe that
the core message of this film is that, regardless of how conflict ridden one’s
life and environment may seem, and despite the dullness and misery with which harsh
perceptions of reality often clouds our aspirations, the true values of life
can easily be revealed through acts of kindness, selflessness, devoted respect
and creativity as well as an appreciation for the appalling beauty portrayed by
all life that is all too often neglected.
There were countless
scenes in the film whose unique structure and creative fluency captured my attention,
interest and respect; however, I believe that one, or rather, several of the
same nature, particularly deserved considerable attention. The scenes that
depicted the brittle artist from the perspective of Amelie’s window allowed
viewers to capture the sense of separation and spectatorship that Amelie experienced
from her own perspective, while stilling allowing for a clear view of the artist’s
environment and actions; nothing was cluttered or confusing throughout the
short progression of these scenes, and it was not necessary to force viewers to
observe the artist from an unrealistically informed, third person perspective
that would have severed the immediate connection between viewers and Amelie for
the remaining duration of that scene. Even if such shots as those were
ultimately used as well, the inclusion of a first person perspective,
specifically one of a furtive witness, certainly benefitted the film’s diverse
library of dynamic and often spontaneous cinematic methods in a way that not
all films attend to the achieving of. 9/10
