Amélie (2001)

ONE PERSON CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet had been collecting things since 1974. Anything really. Stories, images, memories, impressions, people. He filled notebooks with things that he found interesting or worth remembering. It would seem he never really found any particular endgame in his collecting, at least not a specific enough one to be able to quantify his endeavours. It was, for all intents and purposes, just his hobby. When he eventually became a filmmaker, he would have continued picking up these scraps of life around him, likely dipping into them for ideas or inspiration. However, in 2001, his hobby would give him what is quite possibly his masterpiece. A fantasy about love and joy centred on a young woman named Amélie Poulain.

Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou), an innocent and naïve young waitress living in Paris, decides to help those around her rediscover the joy their lives as a way of making herself happier. However, she does find it difficult to find real joy for herself, until she (sort of) meets a young man named Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz).

The script for Amélie was written by Guillaume Laurant, based on a story by both Laurant and Jeunet. The two had previously worked on The City of Lost Children to pretty decent results, so when Jeunet finally decided to tackle those notebooks filled with the odds and ends of existence that he had amassed over all those years, it was Laurant that he enlisted to help him. The script itself is at once beautifully detailed and also rather scattergun. There is, for the longest time, little in the way of an actual story. It’s really more a collection of characters, stationed in various settings, with Amélie as the one connection that runs through them all. Things happen to them, either by the machinations of Fate or of Amélie herself, but there isn’t really an overall arc for it all. It’s okay, because it’s really more about what this random gaggle of misfits and oddballs get from each other if only they would look up once in a while. There are moments of grand absurdity, and even some glimpses at a rather dark humour, but it’s all taken as part of a widespread fantasy. Given the importance of the characters in the film, they each shine wonderfully. Even if they’ve only been given the slightest tick or affect, it is built on beautifully. There is a point being made about what you can understand about a person from only the briefest glimpses, and the importance of trying. Nino becomes obsessed with a particular man in his photo collection, and longs to understand what his story is. Amélie’s neighbour, Dufayel, paints the same picture (Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party) over and over again, but always has difficulty with the one girl whose face is mostly obscured by a glass. As such, he considers her his greatest challenge. In this world, people who try to understand more about those around them are the ones worth listening to. When there is a story to look at - Amélie’s infatuation with and pursuit of Nino - it’s so incredibly charming that you almost can’t help but go along with it.

Jeunet, a great visualist, creates for the film a vibrant sense of colour and atmosphere. Wanting to ape the look of Brazilian artist Juarez Machado, Jeunet and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel bring an appropriately painterly look to everything. So much so that you could pick almost any random frame from the film and hang it on your wall. Giving the fantastically striking nature of the Paris on show, every scene is composed and rendered in complementary colours, with reds in greens and yellows in blues. This is a world that is so alive and vivacious that it’s almost cartoonish. Some may feel like it’s a bit much, but there is no denying the sheer vitality of what’s on screen.

Yann Tiersen’s music is equally infectious. It’s minimalist, it’s absurd, it’s memorable, it’s unique, it’s versatile, and it’s an unmitigated delight. It never overpowers the picture, but enhances it to a splendid degree. Even as I’ve been sitting here writing this, the music is running through my head.

Performances throughout are solid. No one fails to make an impression. This is partially due to the slightly over-the-top pitch of the film that the actors must live up to, but they do so without any trouble. They all own such a distinctive look, they speak and move in such a unique way that, cartoonish broad strokes or no, these people are alive. However, this is Amélie’s film and Audrey Tautou is its beating heart. Tautou is absolutely adorable, capturing that child-like nature and slight emotional reserve of the character superbly. She always looks like she’s just barely keeping a secret, like she knows that it’s all a film and is trying not to let all the other characters in on the joke, thus keeping it going that little bit longer. It’s this kind of playful nature that rests at the core of Amélie. She’s not embarrassed or troubled by what’s happening… it’s just all part of the game she’s playing with everyone else and she wants it to go on for as long as possible.

What is perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of Amélie is that the film is not really Amélie’s fantasy, but director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s. Here, he has, in some way, created a wonderful relationship for himself, or at least a fictionalised version of himself. Amélie’s love story is, by equal measure, the love story of Nino, played by Mathieu Kassovitz, who is also a filmmaker. Let us consider Nino as the filmic surrogate for Jeunet. The filmmaker connection is obvious, but look closer at Nino. Like Jeunet, Nino keeps a scrapbook of the things that people throw away, in this case the unwanted, torn-up photos from photo booths. If this is true, Amélie can be considered as the story of a pretty young women, full of joy, coming to love and appreciate the filmmaker for all his quirks and oddball habits. It’s not really a vanity project. After all, Amélie is a simple girl, and just as weird as he is. It’s more of an act of mercy to his younger self. Nino’s relationships don’t last long, probably because he’s a bit strange. Jeunet himself might have had relationship woes growing up because he himself was a bit strange. Today, Jeunet is married and a world famous filmmaker, but there does still exist in his memory the image of himself as a somewhat lonely young man, looking for companionship in the world. The reason Amélie exists in such a fantasy world, and in fact seems to be the only one aware that she’s in a film, is because she is there as an agent of Jeunet’s psyche, there to bring hope and happiness to the young man who wants nothing more than to have someone who understands him.

I’ll be honest… the first time I watched Amélie, I wasn’t convinced. I thought it was a little too quirky, too precious, too saccharine, too fantastically naïve to really connect. The fact that it was so lauded with praise only served to baffle me further. This is not the first time this has happened to me with a film. Both Taxi Driver and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford got the same reaction. By film’s end, I could appreciate the technique and understand it all, but I just couldn’t say I felt it. It was only when I realised that I was still thinking about Amélie days after seeing it that it sank in. The same goes for those other two, which I now count amongst my favourite films. The next time I saw Amélie, it was a different story. I got it. I felt it. There are still some things I still don’t quite buy into, but the rest of the film is more than enough to make up for this.

If you haven’t seen Amélie, then I would certainly recommend it. I would perhaps be prepared to give it two shows, if you’re anything like the moderately hard-hearted person I am. However, you may be lucky enough to get it on the first go. Amélie is a truly lovely film, rich in atmosphere, colour and such a sense of (yes, I’m going to say it) joie de vivre. Plus, if it convinces a couple of people to be nicer in the world, then I’d consider that a success.

Alien: Resurrection (1997)

IT'S BEEN MORE THAN 200 YEARS... THE BEGINNING HAS JUST STARTED

Well, finally, after 18 years and some serious highs and lows, the Alien series reaches its end… well, before the whole Alien Vs. Predator thing. Each of the films had their own personality of sorts and gave some new(ish) directors a shot at the big time. The first was Ridley Scott’s work of tense genius - Alien. The second was James Cameron’s adrenaline-fuelled action panic fest - Aliens. The third was the badly misconceived mess - Alien³. Finally, there’s the fourth instalment, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection.

After 200 years, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is brought back to life through the process of cloning, during which the scientists successfully take the Queen Alien out of her. However, Ripley’s DNA has been mixed up with the Queen’s, making her part Xenomorph. The scientists begin breeding the aliens, but they soon escape and wreak havoc on the ship. Now, Ripley and a band of pirates have to escape and stop the alien menace from reaching Earth.

Joss Whedon’s script is interesting, largely because it’s barely an Alien movie, if at all. It’s a disaster movie, mashing up Jurassic Park and The Poseidon Adventure and setting it in space. The pack of Raptors that tore up that dinosaur theme park have been replaced with the Xenomorph creatures and they’ve all been set after a group of survivors trying to make it off the ship before it crashes. As it turns out, in light of Whedon’s projects since then, it would also act as a sort of dry run for what would become his sf/western TV series Firefly… God, that was a good show. Anyway, there is a very recognisable Whedon-ness throughout the script. You can see the nicely drawn characters, the sarcastically dark humour. It’s not all smooth sailing, though… I still don’t entirely buy Christie’s way out.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet actually does a pretty good job of engaging visually with the film. His is an Expressionistic style, almost comic booky. He conceives of shots well, in a manner that almost recalls the first film, albeit in a more exaggerated way, a more… well, French way. He also has some very effective set pieces. The underwater sequence, though nothing you haven’t seen before, works terrifically well and the sequence with Ripley and the Newborn Xenomorph/Human hybrid is very disconcerting. However, you will note that I say “visually” and not “tonally”. Jeunet, for whatever reason, just simply does not seem to get Whedon’s humour or manner of storytelling. As such, scenes that should probably have more significance are given little to no real attention. The character of Sabra is down to almost nothing, which affects both our connection to her and Frank. There are other moments that you know Whedon, had he been calling the shots, would have done differently. Like Perez’s discussions with Wren and Gediman near the start of the film. They actually are funny, but not as much as they perhaps should be. It’s not like the writing has been changed to reflect a more direct approach either; it’s just been short-circuited a little. Perhaps the reason for this was that Jeunet, at the time of filming, didn’t speak English and had to have interpreters on set at all times. He certainly wouldn’t be the first director to make a film with a language barrier between him or herself and the actors, but Whedon’s writing has a subtlety that would be very easily missed under such circumstances. Saying that, it’s also possible that Jeunet simply chose to ignore all of that and do it his way. He is the director, after all.

Sigourney Weaver is actually more alive here than she was previously. The character had gotten a little stale, regressed, and though she tried to keep her strong, Weaver was still not working with much. The idea of Ripley now being part Xenomorph has given the actress a new dimension to explore. Not only is she still the smart and brave character we know, but she’s also become a genuine threat to others. There’s a new, more menacing aspect to Ripley and Weaver realises it fully, becoming like an animalistic bully, leering into people’s faces and sniffing them. It’s also got a very weird seductive undercurrent to it. Weaver was clearly very happy to get something new out of this.

Others also do quite well for themselves. Brad Dourif seems to be incapable of not being creepy onscreen; Ron Perlman commits as much as he always does, so much so that it seems like it’s overacting, but that’s really just the vulgar nature of Johner; Leland Orser does the panicky bit well; and Michael Wincott does the badass captain well enough for his few scenes. I remain somewhat undecided on how successful Winona Ryder is. She’s convincing enough being all doe-eyed and moralistic, but I get the feeling I should be getting more from her in a ‘what’s the true nature of humanity’ kind of way that I just don’t feel.

There are others in the cast that don’t really fare as well, largely as a factor of the tonal disconnect between the writer and director. Gary Dourdan seems to be unsure of how badass his character is, so there are times where you see him hold back or act mean only to close it back up again right away. Dan Hedaya’s Perez is a little scattered, too. It almost seems like the scenes he’s in were directed by Terry Gilliam rather than Jeunet. Raymond Cruz also engages in some rather unhealthy overacting, though it wouldn't be the first time.

Honestly, I’m not even going to attempt any kind of subextual considerations since I kind of feel like the film covers the same kind of ground as the first two, though perhaps with the tables being turned and now it’s the mother’s turn to kill the offspring… and even that was sort of hinted at, albeit clumsily, in the third one.

Alien: Resurrection isn’t the confused jumble that mars its immediate predecessor, but neither does it have the spiky genius of the first two. It’s visually very engaging, it’s got some fine set pieces, has much more of an idea about the central thrust behind it all, and Sigourney Weaver is given a great new depth to play with. However, it does feel like two visions clashing (Jeunet’s and Whedon’s) to the detriment of the overall project. As such, it can’t really be elevated much beyond okay.