I’ve a confession to share: I really hate Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 film, Amelie. The rom-com, with its insufferably childlike lead character, portrayed by the beautiful Audrey Tautou, is often cited by cineastes as revitalising French cinema in the millennium, but I find it nauseating.
It seems I’m not alone in this. Savages ‘ lead singer Jehnny Beth, in a recent Guardian interview, stated: “It’s a lie from start to finish. I hate this portrayal of a young lady waiting for love, being so naive, just a boring child. I hate it, and I hate people who love it.”
She has a point. Amelie lives in an idealised Montmatre with no litter, crime or problems. In her impeccable, vintage style apartment, she lives in a world of fantasy, despite working in a cafe. It’s like American sitcoms where menial workers inexplicably live in the lap of luxury, with no money problems.
A contemporary Pollyanna, Amelie sets about interfering in everyone’s lives, in order to improve their situations. This involves plot contrivances with postcards, garden gnomes and grating, wacky characters. Nobody minds her interference, because everything works out fine, all the time.
Amelie herself is in love. But instead of asking out the charisma- free Nino, her object of desire, she follows him around, without talking to him. Reverse the gender and you’d have a stalker situation – not so cute. She explored a creepy character just like that in the far superior He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.
It seemed to signal the start of a fondness for twee arts and crafts, puppies and reading every single Harry Potter book as an adult, a complete rejection of anything even remotely grown up. This infantilised way of existing has also been referred to as “kidcore”, always dressing in cartoon T shirts and bright colours, spending time playing all the time, instead of ever indulging in adult art or literature. That’s fine occasionally, but when it’s a whole lifestyle, I fear we’ve regressed. Amelie never sees any bad in anyone, just skips around simpering, like a five year old, and refuses to exist in reality. It’s toxic positivity 101.
The baffling part is that Nino works in a porn store. This, and a bizarre scene with a stripper undressing to a remix of a Billie Holiday song, is the only adult factor in a film where love will prevail, nothing bad ever happens, and manifestation means magic is real. Pass the sick bag. The soundtrack by Yann Tiersen is nice though.
Jeunet’s City Of Lost Children is a much better film. Stick to it. It’s visually stunning, and has more bite. Amelie is just an insult to the grand tradition of French cinema, absolutely “merde”.
Hit The North 