Then Amélie falls in love with Nino Quincampoix, a dreamy and absent-minded young man who works in a sex shop and in his spare time collects pictures from railway stations' photo booths. The plot jumps from one crazy intrigue to another. She writes love letters to her caretaker to remind her that her husband still loves her. She matchmakes a hypochondriac waitress with an obsessively jealous customer. She kidnaps her father's favourite garden gnome and has him photographed in exotic destinations to encourage her father to travel. The movie's appeal has a lot to do with its absurd and fantastical tone as Amélie tries to improve the lives of the people around her in increasingly bizarre ways. The heroine is a painfully shy waitress who relates best to the imaginary characters who live with her in her flat. Draped in bordello red velvet and decorated with mismatched lamps, antique furniture, piles of pillows, and prints by artist Michael Sowa, it’s part Moulin Rouge, part fairy tale, and everything you’d dream a fake Parisian flat would be.Jean-Pierre Jeunet's latest movie, Amélie, is a wonderful movie about a young woman's fantasy world. Texture, though, is everywhere on the interiors, especially in Amélie’s apartment. Fontaine and Lebail stick with small scale prints - ditsy florals and polka dots - for the ladies of Café des 2 Moulins. When she goes incognito in cat’s eye sunglasses and head scarf, the Audrey Hepburn vibes are unmistakable. Much of her look reads very secondhand, especially the just-too-big coats, one of which features pearl trim that Amélie could have sewn on herself. Martens oxfords with rolled down socks (better for running all over Paris plotting adventures). Miss Poulain’s uniform consists of below-the-knee skirts, skinny knits, cardigans, and a pair of Dr. Likewise, costume designers Madeline Fontaine and Emma Lebail kept Amélie’s wardrobe simple yet saturated in those signature colors. (Jeunet even digitally altered overcast skies because he preferred clouds to stark whiteness.) Warming filters on the camera aided in the film’s dusk-like glow - there are almost no night scenes - and colors were punched up in post production using a process called Digital Intermediate. Lavish scenery is awash in shades of ruby, emerald and gold with the odd splash of bright blue, a visual style borrowed from painter Juarez Machado. With Bruno Delbonnel as cinematographer, every frame is postcard perfect. He spent an extensive amount of time location scouting, switching up subway wall posters and meticulously cleaning exterior sets prior to shooting. Filmed in the Parisian suburb of Montmartre, Jeunet purposely created a “Fake Paris” that looks like the stuff of childhood dreams. By contrast, Amélie is a quirky comedy set in modern times, but with an unabashedly nostalgic mood. Now in her twenties, she must learn to break free from the chains of insecurity if she wants to make her own wishes come true.Īmélie was a departure for Jeunet, who was known for dark, twisted fantasies like Delicatessen and The City Of Lost Children. Amélie’s painfully shy, a quirk rooted in a lonely childhood filled with fictional friends, daydreams and stratagems. Played by the winsome Audrey Tatou, Amélie, not unlike Jane Austen’s Emma, makes it her mission to help everyone around her, but has problems helping herself. In his 2001 masterpiece ‘Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain’, French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet paints the tale of an introverted young woman with a wickedly colorful imagination. With Amélie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet created a coloring book-style Paris that continues to inspire.
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