Amelie (2001) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Released in France as "Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain".

Every once in a while a film comes along which reaches the height of artistic expression that is normally achieved only by art and literature. Amelie is such a movie. It is also a beloved crowd pleaser and a box office smash.

It is possible that you will find the story syrupy and trivial. I did, too. Of course, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool crotchety old geezer who makes Dennis Miller, Ebeneezer Scrooge, and other jaded world-weary types seem like members of the King family, so I hate this kind of heart-warming crap. But that doesn't matter at all, because the execution of the film is so good that it won me over even though I was predisposed to dislike it.

It is just that good.

It's witty, it's joyfully sentimental, it's romantic, it's literate, it's funny ...

Oh, yeah, and it may be the most ingeniously photographed film in history. I don't think any film has even presented a more attractive picture of Paris. The special color treatments, the vivid greens and reds of the fauve painters, make this entire film look like a romanticized 19th century Paris street scene come to life and modernized. Virtually every frame of the film could be snapped, enlarged and hung on your wall. When you see this film, you'll want to travel to Paris, just as so many wanted to in an earlier epoch after seeing the street scenes of Utrillo and Pisarro.

The camera angles are clever. The perspectives are inventive. The transitions from scene to scene, often linking them by phone, telescope or binoculars, are delightful. Audrey Tautou is completely charming, a reincarnation of Audrey Hepburn with a better figure.

Hollywood likes to laugh at the French filmmakers because they want to make works of art before they know how to remove the lens cap. Well, France just achieved total technical parity, and maybe even a bit more. The cinematography and editing employed here are absolutely at a virtuoso level.

The story:

Amelie was a lonely girl who grew up to be a charming, naive, withdrawn adult. One day, a fateful circumstance led her to discover a box of children's toys from the fifties. She ingeniously contrived to return them to their owner, and this had such a positive effect on her and the owner, that she resolved to become a regular do-gooder, but always at a safe emotional and physical distance. For example, she gave the toy box back by placing it in a public phone booth, then dialing the number as the owner passed. Of course, he thought it must be miraculous.

At the same time, Amelie had discussions with a reclusive old man who kept repainting Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party" every year, but could never quite get the correct facial expression on one girl. Amelie came to identify with this girl, and got to talk about her own life with the old man by using the girl in the painting as a surrogate. This process led her to seek richer interaction with people in her own life.

Renoir's painting serves as an excellent connection between the visual world of the Impressionists, and the visual world of this film, which creates a filmed impressionism or post-impressionism of its own.

And then there is the mystery of the man who appears in so many discarded photo booth pictures throughout Paris. Just who is he?

In places, it was downright laugh out loud hilarious. Someone convinced the child Amelie that she was causing traffic accidents by taking pictures with her camera. When she realized she had been had, she came up with a great method of revenge. She got on his roof with a TV, and waited for each goal opportunity in the soccer match he was watching to unplug his cable.

Scoop also mentioned that it was a director's picture, and intelligent. The example that struck me was that, even though they had a narrator, the narrator provided mood, not exposition, and not speaking French is not a big disadvantage in this film, as the director showed you what was going on, rather than telling you.