Amélie (2001)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
At a tiny Parisian café, the adorable yet painfully shy Amélie accidentally discovers a gift for helping others. Soon Amelie is spending her days as a matchmaker, guardian angel, and all-around do-gooder. But when she bumps into a handsome stranger, will she find the courage to become the star of her very own love story?
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22 films that influenced Amélie
What critics say influenced Amélie
Some viewers have compared her to Audrey Hepburn, but Tautou's Amelie is more like a slightly naughty, less inhibited descendant of the characters Leslie Caron played in "An American in Paris" and "Lili."
Of course this is not a realistic modern Paris, and some critics have sniffed about that, too: It is clean, orderly, safe, colorful, has no social problems, and is peopled entirely by citizens who look like extras from " An American in Paris ."
Some viewers have compared her to Audrey Hepburn, but Tautou's Amelie is more like a slightly naughty, less inhibited descendant of the characters Leslie Caron played in "An American in Paris" and "Lili."
The movie has echoes of Carne and Prevert’s dada comedy “Bizarre, Bizarre,” and the delights of Rene Clair, like the musical “Le Million.”
"Amelie" wafts us back to the fairytale France that once seduced international moviegoers in the days of "Le Million," "The Red Balloon" "Mon Oncle," but it also shows all the things -- some sexual, some political -- that now grace the screen since those more innocent days.
* Alphaville (1965) -- The gleaming and austere concrete-and-glass city of Jean-Luc Godard's techno-dystopia was in fact Paris, even if the Arc de Triomphe is nowhere to be found.
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In a way Amelie is like Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s (and in fact, Toutou looks like Audrey Hepburn in the occasional shot).
She has the same natural beauty and infectious smile that carried "Roman Holiday" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's" among others.
A romantic comedy that stubbornly refuses to play by the rules, "Amelie" could be this generation's "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
Though he pays homage to Truffaut’s “Jules and Jim,” Jeunet (who co-wrote the screenplay with Giulliame Laurant) is clearly more influenced by the slam-bang visual pyrotechnics of Hollywood directors like Steven Spielberg than such stately French masters as Eric Rohmer.
The movie sneaks in a clip from Jules and Jim, but it’s much closer kin to the unmoored antics of Shoot the Piano Player.
The 1935 “The Good Fairy,” an adaptation of the Molnár play written by Preston Sturges, directed by William Wyler and starring the heavenly Margaret Sullavan managed it (and I would bet that Jeunet and his co-screenwriter Guillame Laurant had that movie in mind as one of their models).
If Terry Southern’s novel “The Magic Christian” were produced by the folks at the Welcome Wagon, the result might be something like “Amélie.”
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There are elements of fate and images which strongly recall "Run Lola Run," (a man crossing a line of cassocked priests is the flip to Lola's encounter with nuns).
Like Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run, Amelie is energized by instances of fast-cutting and unexpected inserts.
Jeunet unapolegetically runs with this style, almost turning the movie into something that one might expect to see when crossing "Ally McBeal" with Chungking Express.