Frank Zappa had it just about right with that above quote, and if you're not laughing you've obviously never been to the REAL France (and stepped in some of the ever-present dog-doo on the sidewalks over there, or dealt with some of the 'rude, snobbish & bizarrely hostile behavior' that seems as natural as breathing air to more than a few people over there), or had blinders on when you did go there, inspired by the FANTASY Paris of charming little virtuoso films like "Amelie."
Now, in all fairness to the film, it does contain some very intense and hilarious satire in its first half (though of the much-too-exaggerated 'over-the-top' semi-fantasy kind) & is obviously the work of a CINEMATIC virtuoso (which does not imply Jeunet is an ARTISTIC virtuoso also, it only means the guy is a complete master of the TECHNICAL possibilities of the medium), but the splitting of the film between satire & irreverence on the one hand & the most cliched of schmaltzified romances on the other, seriously hurts the film's effectiveness as a possibly DEEPLY SIGNIFICANT piece of ART-ifact. It starts off majestically & ends up as CHARMING-SATIRE-MINUS-FLUFF, unlike "THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE" by the Coen Brothers, which starts off majestically dark & ends an awe-inspiring confirmation of the maxim behind every great 'realist' film: Pascal's famous "Man's greatness is so obvious it can even be deduced from his wretchedness." Now, I mention the Coens' film because it is the only film I've seen this year with CINEMATOGRAPHY (courtesy of Mr. Roger Deakins) matching or maybe even surpassing the INSANELY MAGNIFICENT level of the one in display in shot after shot in "Amelie" by BRUNO DELBONNEL. I was truly knocked out of my seat by the unerring beauty of the angles used & the antique-look-contrasting-with-modern colors within the shots. I also mention the Coens, because Jeunet is making films now that are sort of "Raising-Arizonaish" in their comic-book-imposed-on-reality extravagant, comic style, but will hopefully achieve the maturity of the Coens, in his deeper outlook to turn out something like "The Man Who Wasn't There."
Getting down to more specifics, "Amelie" reminded me of Louis Malle's classic 1960 film "Zazie Dans Le Metro," which also is split down the middle, magnificent for the first half, BORING & cliched in the second. However, Catherine Demongeot (who, bizarrely enough, Nabokov once said would've been the PERFECT LOLITA had he been allowed to pick one young enough to add the proper amount of repulsion to Kubrick's film) in "Zazie" is a 10 year old girl, & much less interesting to red-blooded heterosexual hairy-chested men (such as yours truly) than the supercute, 'BIG SHOED' (above as we;; as below), starlet of Jeunet's film: Audrey Tautou. On one level, the film is a love affair between Jeunet's camera & Tautou, in the time honored tradtion of Sternberg/Dietrich, Powell/Kerr, Hitchcock/Hedren, Godard/Karina, De Palma/Nancy Allen, etc., the angles he uses, the way he frames her, the endless close-ups, all of these things are the work of an artist in love with his subject (whether there's a 'love relatonship' in 'real life' is beside the point), and all the audience is thankful for it.
On another level (again reminding me of "Zazie"), the film takes you on quite a TURBOCHARGED, non-cliched 'tour' of picturesque areas of Paris, & is maybe the best advertising the old 'city of Romance' has had for years. It takes the eyes & sensibilities of masters like Jeunet & Delbonnel to get these shots with just the proper amount of irreverence incoroporated (by what they choose to show and omit), & then ruin them by overplaying sappy annoying accordion music for way too long towards the latter, weaker third of the flick.
All in all, 3 out of 5 stars or a 7 on a scale of 10, which means DEFINITELY RECOMMENDED, but like another technically dazzling, relatively popular French film before it Patrice Leconte's "The Girl on the Bridge," a little too short on substance and TRUE ROMANCE (as opposed to the cliched, NON-EXISTENT kind displayed in the film; check out Renoir's "Picnic on the Grass" or Jacques Becker's "Antoine et Antoinette" if you want to see a similarly whimsical, semi-fantasy film nevertheless displaying the EXISTENT KIND OF 'ROMANCE' IN INNER SENSIBILITY if not in actual, same-story realistic possibility) to give the 'HELL OF FRANCE' its proper artistic due, and in consequence become as great as let's say Truffaut's "Shoot the Piano Player." And did I mention that a sizeable portion of the film is, among other things, a dead-on satire of Hitchcock's overrated classic "Rear Window"?
Now, in all fairness to the film, it does contain some very intense and hilarious satire in its first half (though of the much-too-exaggerated 'over-the-top' semi-fantasy kind) & is obviously the work of a CINEMATIC virtuoso (which does not imply Jeunet is an ARTISTIC virtuoso also, it only means the guy is a complete master of the TECHNICAL possibilities of the medium), but the splitting of the film between satire & irreverence on the one hand & the most cliched of schmaltzified romances on the other, seriously hurts the film's effectiveness as a possibly DEEPLY SIGNIFICANT piece of ART-ifact. It starts off majestically & ends up as CHARMING-SATIRE-MINUS-FLUFF, unlike "THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE" by the Coen Brothers, which starts off majestically dark & ends an awe-inspiring confirmation of the maxim behind every great 'realist' film: Pascal's famous "Man's greatness is so obvious it can even be deduced from his wretchedness." Now, I mention the Coens' film because it is the only film I've seen this year with CINEMATOGRAPHY (courtesy of Mr. Roger Deakins) matching or maybe even surpassing the INSANELY MAGNIFICENT level of the one in display in shot after shot in "Amelie" by BRUNO DELBONNEL. I was truly knocked out of my seat by the unerring beauty of the angles used & the antique-look-contrasting-with-modern colors within the shots. I also mention the Coens, because Jeunet is making films now that are sort of "Raising-Arizonaish" in their comic-book-imposed-on-reality extravagant, comic style, but will hopefully achieve the maturity of the Coens, in his deeper outlook to turn out something like "The Man Who Wasn't There."
Getting down to more specifics, "Amelie" reminded me of Louis Malle's classic 1960 film "Zazie Dans Le Metro," which also is split down the middle, magnificent for the first half, BORING & cliched in the second. However, Catherine Demongeot (who, bizarrely enough, Nabokov once said would've been the PERFECT LOLITA had he been allowed to pick one young enough to add the proper amount of repulsion to Kubrick's film) in "Zazie" is a 10 year old girl, & much less interesting to red-blooded heterosexual hairy-chested men (such as yours truly) than the supercute, 'BIG SHOED' (above as we;; as below), starlet of Jeunet's film: Audrey Tautou. On one level, the film is a love affair between Jeunet's camera & Tautou, in the time honored tradtion of Sternberg/Dietrich, Powell/Kerr, Hitchcock/Hedren, Godard/Karina, De Palma/Nancy Allen, etc., the angles he uses, the way he frames her, the endless close-ups, all of these things are the work of an artist in love with his subject (whether there's a 'love relatonship' in 'real life' is beside the point), and all the audience is thankful for it.
On another level (again reminding me of "Zazie"), the film takes you on quite a TURBOCHARGED, non-cliched 'tour' of picturesque areas of Paris, & is maybe the best advertising the old 'city of Romance' has had for years. It takes the eyes & sensibilities of masters like Jeunet & Delbonnel to get these shots with just the proper amount of irreverence incoroporated (by what they choose to show and omit), & then ruin them by overplaying sappy annoying accordion music for way too long towards the latter, weaker third of the flick.
All in all, 3 out of 5 stars or a 7 on a scale of 10, which means DEFINITELY RECOMMENDED, but like another technically dazzling, relatively popular French film before it Patrice Leconte's "The Girl on the Bridge," a little too short on substance and TRUE ROMANCE (as opposed to the cliched, NON-EXISTENT kind displayed in the film; check out Renoir's "Picnic on the Grass" or Jacques Becker's "Antoine et Antoinette" if you want to see a similarly whimsical, semi-fantasy film nevertheless displaying the EXISTENT KIND OF 'ROMANCE' IN INNER SENSIBILITY if not in actual, same-story realistic possibility) to give the 'HELL OF FRANCE' its proper artistic due, and in consequence become as great as let's say Truffaut's "Shoot the Piano Player." And did I mention that a sizeable portion of the film is, among other things, a dead-on satire of Hitchcock's overrated classic "Rear Window"?
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