Amelie is a French romantic comedy film. It was released in 2001 and quickly won the love of viewers around the world. The main character of the picture Amelie Poulin has become one of the most popular movie heroines of the new millennium, a kind of spectator cult has formed around her. The visual style of the film and the famous soundtrack became recognizable to people who did not even watch the film.
Film story
The director and screenwriter of Amelie is Jean-Pierre Genet. He became famous in the early nineties with the films "Delicatessen" and "City of Lost Children". In 1997, he became the director of the fourth part of the Alien franchise called Resurrection. After unsuccessful studio work in Hollywood, he decided to return to the author’s cinema and wrote the script “Amelie”.
His wife saw in the role of Amelie Poulain the actress Emily Watson, whom he first saw on the screen in Lars Von Trier's film "Breaking the Waves." In honor of her, the main character is named. However, the British actress was busy with other projects and did not speak French well enough. The director had to look for a replacement for Watson, and she became a young actress Audrey Tautou.
Plot description
The film concentrates on the main character named Amelie Poulin. As a child, the girl’s father Rafael mistakenly diagnosed her with a heart defect, and she was forced to spend her school years studying at home. The mother of the heroine died when a woman fell on her, who decided to commit suicide and jumped from Notre Dame Cathedral. Loneliness and lack of friends greatly developed Amelie's fantasy.
When the girl grew up, she left her father's house and got a job as a waitress in the Two Mills cafe in Montmartre. One day she finds in the apartment a cache hidden there by a small tenant who is now fifty years old. It turns out that he is glad for such a gift from the past, and Amelie Poulin decides to intervene in the lives of other people.
Further events lead the girl to meet with many interesting characters, including the photo booth worker Nico, who becomes the object of her romantic interest. Amelie helps a colleague find her love, sends her father's garden gnome on a trip around the world with the help of a familiar stewardess and helps Niko unravel the mystery of crumpled photos.
Reaction to the picture
The film was rejected by the commission of the Cannes Film Festival and called "uninteresting." This decision subsequently caused criticism from viewers and professional critics. The picture was released in French-speaking countries and had a limited display in North America.
Amelie rated 89 percent of the positive reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes website. Among the average viewer, the film was also a huge success: with a budget of $ 10 million, he earned about 175 million worldwide. In subsequent years, the cult around the picture only increased.
The soundtrack of the film has become especially popular. It was written by composer and multi-instrumentalist Jan Thiersen. Songs from the movie "Amelie", especially the piano melody that has been heard throughout the film, have become insanely popular. The soundtrack has been nominated for many international awards and is considered one of the main keys to the success of the film. Film critics believe that the failure in the selection for the Cannes Film Festival is due to the fact that the copy submitted to the commission was without music.
Amelie was nominated for an Academy Award in 2001 in the categories of "Best Foreign Film", "Best Original Screenplay", "Best Cinematography", "Best Sound" and "Best Artistic Work", and also received four Cesar Prizes and two BAFTA figurines.
For a long time, theater directors tried to turn the story of Amelie Poulin into a musical. His wife refused to sell the rights to the story, and Thiersen did not want to transfer the rights to the original soundtrack. As a result, in 2013, the screenwriter nevertheless sold the rights to staging in order to raise money for charity. The musical was released on Broadway in 2017 without music from the original picture and was not particularly successful.
main character
Amelie Pulen has become a cult character in many countries, including Japan and Russia. The name Amelie became popular among young parents, only in England in 2003 it was named after this name one and a half thousand newborns.
Cafe "Two Mills", where the heroine worked, really exists and began to enjoy incredible popularity. The skyrocketing real estate prices in the Montmartre quarter are also associated with the success of the film.