The Future is almost upon us - the new Miranda July movie, that is - and I approach seeing it with a mixture of anticipation and dread. July is a quintessential room-splitter; people tend to love or loathe her work, with equal measures of intensity. Personally, I'm on the fence. I enjoyed some aspects of her first feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know, while other things in it nearly made me break out in hives (or want to see Ms. July covered in bees). In her case, I am the room, and I be split in two.
I recently experienced a similar bout of cinematic schizophrenia. Researching a project, I've been screening rom-coms and comedies from the top of this past decade, and so I took a look at Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie for the first time since its original 2001 release. I remembered really liking it back then... which is why I was kind of bewildered by my reactions to it, some ten-plus years later. Apparently I'm not the same Billy I used to be.
I do remembering Amelie being controversial in its day. Regarding its star Audrey Tatou (a big-eyed July-like actress), the love-loathe dichotomy was in full display (she drove some men crazy and made some women mad). People thought the movie was one of the best things they'd ever seen, or found its level of bogus-ity obscene. This has to do with your take on all things French, clearly, since the film is nothing if not Francophilic to the extreme, but your enjoyment or abhorrence is also dependent on your capacity for whimsy, surrealism, and poeticized romance.
What holds up for me is its undeniable cinematic inventiveness. There's a playfulness and imagination at work throughout Amelie's antic length that I find hard to resist, especially when the movie manifests a metaphor - such as this memorable moment in which our heroine melts:
Or this one, where Amelie comes upon the object of her desire and a well-worn image is made literal:
On the other hand, there's a level of twee indulgence in the film that the 2011 me finds very hard to stomach. One of its most famous scenes has Amelie, in an epiphanic swelling of love for all humanity, decide to take a local blind man in hand and "show him" what he's been unable to see:
The 2001 me was moved by this scene. Today, I can't help wondering: Why is Amelie rushing the poor guy through his paces so quickly? Why should she assume that this is his idea of a good time? Why's it okay that she be so compassionate for 70 seconds, and then abandon Mr. Blind completely? Isn't that the lyrical equivalent of giving a homeless guy a quarter and then patting yourself on the back for having helped humanity?
I'm still sorting through my contradictory love-hate reactions to Amelie, and I have a feeling that a good part of the difference in my reactions then and now has to do with how blissfully pre-9/11 the movie seems to be. Viewed through the dark prism of Everything Since, the innocence of the time it embodies may be truly difficult to recapture.
Doubtless there's more to it on a more personally subjective level (including the divorce, single life, and re-marriage I've experienced since that first viewing), but I'm curious: Which side of the room does Amelie leave you on, and why? Have you seen it more than once, and has the experience changed for you? Living the Rom-Com would love to know.
Maybe one shouldn't analysze too deeply..?
I have put some news about Audrey Tautou on my website diary today. Also, you can use the 'SEARCH' engine on my site with the search-word 'Amelie' for other bits of information that might interest you about the film.
Bonne journee,
Alexandre Fabbri
KIESLOWSKI'S WORLD
Posted by: Alexandre Fabbri | August 08, 2011 at 10:44 PM
Hmm. I own the DVD and loved it when I saw it in the theater. I've watched it twice since, but not for like seven years. I'll watch it again soon and let you know.
Have you seen Two Lovers yet??
Posted by: Christina | August 08, 2011 at 10:46 PM
Alexandre: I can't help it, I'm a compulsive analyzer. Thank you for the link - this looks like a great and useful site.
Thanks, Christina: I'm in a major work tunnel and waaaaay behind on my home-viewing, even struggling to get out to theaters, but TWO is in my queue (hopefully before it snows?!).
Posted by: mernitman | August 09, 2011 at 10:46 AM
I remember delighting in its whimsy (and to be honest in her)- and forgetting everything about it almost immediately afterward. Other than the fact that it looked gorgeous.
Posted by: Michael Ross | August 09, 2011 at 11:05 AM
I saw it for the first time about 4-5 months ago and was indifferent. I didn't eject it from the DVD player, so I guess there was something in there somewhere that I liked--though I'm not sure what it was. To me, Amelie was acting borderline mental-asylum-resident, so I wasn't sure why anyone would be interested in her romantically. At the same time, she's played by a gorgeous actress, so all the shyness and hiding from her love interest seemed dopey. I guess that's my one-word review of the film: "dopey."
Posted by: Kristen | August 09, 2011 at 11:13 AM
I hated that movie with a righteous passion. That wasn't any Paris I know (and I think I do sort of know Paris); it was a Disneyland version, sans immigrants. Her big eyes buggged me, and the contrivance of it all struck me as hollow and forced.
Would you like to know how I really feel?
Posted by: JLM | August 09, 2011 at 11:15 AM
Michael: Absolutely a widescreen eye feast, for color especially.
Kristen: Funny how gorgeousness trumps borderline-mental, eh? "Dopey" is great word (and my favorite dwarf).
JLM: Annnnnd the room keeps splitting...
Posted by: mernitman | August 09, 2011 at 12:17 PM
Having read your post I'd be somewhat nervous about revisiting the movie. I saw it in '01, in Paris, where I was working at the time, and thought it was such a treat. All hell broke out when I came back. My dad died (10 years ago today, actually), and just a few weeks later, 9/11. I think it would be hard to watch anything from 10 years ago with the same relatively innocent eyes...
Posted by: Binniie | August 09, 2011 at 10:19 PM
Amelie has been on my rewatch list for about 10 years and I've yet to make myself see it again. I know I didn't like it much when I first saw it. I looked at what I wrote about it 10 years or so ago and I was scratching my head over it because it's a kind of movie I usually like. I wondered if it might have been because it used a narrator quite a bit and, being in French, meant a lot of subtitles to read, distracting from the visual story.
One day I will get around to seeing it again and hopefully either like it or figure out what it is I didn't like. (Most people I know loved it.)
Posted by: Bill Wren | August 10, 2011 at 05:24 AM
I did NOT like it when I first watched it, ten years ago. I found it boring and I couldn't relate to it at all. When I was.... thirteen. Now, I just turned 24 and I watched it a few months ago. Now, basically the same age as Amelie, in a similar life- situation, I guess you could say, and now I LOVE it. I guess things just speak to you in different ways at different points in your life.
Posted by: Isobel | August 10, 2011 at 07:43 AM
My first reaction to this movie was similar to your second. I liked the traveling gnome and that was about it. The level of whimsy was unsupported by real characters or story. I even had a big "fight" with a movie-going buddy of mine about this picture! (I think we were actually fighting about something else, but he seemed SHOCKED that I didn't like it as much as he did.) I haven't considered seeing it again but I wonder if I would end up on the positive side this time. Wouldn't that be perfect?
Posted by: jamy | August 10, 2011 at 10:23 AM
Binnie: I hope it's not too sad a day for you (I can totally relate). And yeah, innocence lost is innocence... gone.
Bill: Yes, I noticed that immediately in this re-viewing - the narration is wall-to-wall! Evidently didn't stop many Americans from lapping it up, though...
Isobel: So true! But then, clearly (see other comments) some movies have such a strong specific effect on some people that no amount of life experience alters their perception.
Jamy: That would be perfect, in a rom-com sort of way. Actually, not a bad riff to use in a rom-com script. Hmmm...!
Posted by: mernitman | August 10, 2011 at 10:51 AM
I thought it was a delightful movie when it came out. I bought the DVD and watched a couple of times since. The magic if anything deepened for me.
Amelie is like a breath of fresh air in this brutal world. Yes it portrays a very romanticized vision of Paris. And why not?
Don't we go to the movies precisely to escape reality for some 120 minutes plus? I do.
For me, Amelie is poesy in pictures.
Posted by: Ourdia | August 11, 2011 at 08:40 AM
I liked this when it came out and I've seen it 3 or 4 times since. It gets better and better. Last time I saw it was 3 months ago just before I went to Paris and I loved it. Like Ourdia said, it's nice to escape reality and this film is perfect for that.
I had a similar reaction to that other Jeunet/Tautou picture A Very Long Engagement. I didn't like it much at all when I first saw it but the second time, also about 3 months ago, I loved it.
Posted by: Teddy | August 11, 2011 at 08:21 PM
Hello Ourdia: Good to hear something from the other side of the room. I think some go to the movies for pure escape, and some go for... other stuff as well, but at any rate, thanks for weighing in.
Welcome, Teddy: This notion of when one sees a movie, as an important factor of how one relates to it, intrigues me more and more (the where, and with whom, seems equally important). The lack of absolutes in appreciation of all things artistic is becoming the prevalent theme here...
Posted by: mernitman | August 12, 2011 at 02:41 PM
I wasn't quite the cinephile I am now when I first saw Amélie, so I was in the crowd that "didn't get it." As my appreciation of cinema deepened, as well as my longing to return to France (I turned 17 in Paris), I decided to revisit it and fell in love with it all over again. It's interesting that the life events you list as reasons the magic has lessened for you, Mr. Mernit, are some of the very reasons the magic has grown for me. Something about it gives me hope, I guess, and any movie that does that is a good film in my book. But maybe that's just the hopeless romantic misfit in me talking. :-)
Posted by: Elizabeth Ditty | August 12, 2011 at 08:13 PM
Thank you, Billy. I agree, it depends on where and how and with whom you experience something. Interestingly enough, I too have gone through a divorce and single life (no re-marriage yet) since I first saw Amélie. It seems time had the opposite effect for me since I like it more now than then.
Regarding the blind man scene, you're right, she's making an assumption that he would want this, but I don't think it's so she can feel good about herself, it's more of a compulsion with her to meddle in other people's affairs.
Viewed out of context like this it does feel rushed, but I didn't notice it while watching the film. I think it goes to Amélie's character. Her way of solving issues is to make others see something they haven't seen before and letting them make the decision what to do. She doesn't confront any problem head-on.
Everything is done in a roundabout way like messing with the grocer to teach him a lesson, or making her co-worker and the customer notice each other, or showing her dad that there's a whole world out there he should explore by having the garden gnome send him postcards, and all the while Amélie herself can't open up emotionally. She stays detached.
Here, in order to make the blind man “see” the things she felt he was missing, she has to tackle it head-on. She can't manipulate this situation like she did with everything else, and the only way for her to cope with this is to get through it as quickly as possible and then disappear without an explanation, staying anonymous.
Picture her doing this the rational way; asking if he'd be interested in a tour, leading him around slowly, letting him savour all the impressions, bidding him a proper adieu as she leaves – now that would have been out of character.
Posted by: Teddy | August 12, 2011 at 10:38 PM
I loved it when it came out, and enjoyed it when I just rewatched it last week. I'll always enjoy silliness. (Though I felt the same way about the blind guy. I think it was just a bad scene.)
I don't know that anything's happened in a generalized 9-11 kinda way. My husband was watching it for the first time and he reacted to it the way people did back then (people who loved it.)
And if it does capture a pre-9-11 innocence (which I'm not sure it does, since it's a French movie, and that seems like a US centric view), that innocence must be what appealed to be precisely in the new 9-11 reality because that's when the movie was released. And the DVD's been prominent in stores ever since.
So I think your Personal thesis fits better.
;-)
Also there are a lot of "mysteries" and surprises in the movie, so I think at a minimum the movie might lose some magic after the first viewing, for that reason.
Posted by: londonmabel | August 15, 2011 at 10:58 PM
Elizabeth, you hopeless romantic misfit, you: Turning 17 in Paris would do marvelous things to anyone's appreciation for the magical, I'd think.
Teddy: You're absolutely right about the scene being "in character," and I appreciate your thoughtful explication of how Amelie is written. I'm looking at it from the wrong end of the telescope, so to speak, i.e. out of the film's specific context, and hence the questions.
London Mabel: Yup, November 2011 release; I was positing "pre-9/11" as its POV, i.e. when the movie was made (and released in Europe, which was April of that year, I believe) but I'll happily concede the general point. Clearly my own myopic life experiences at work, here. Re: the mysteries, that's interesting, while funnily enough, it's those moments (e.g. the two clips posted before the Blind Man bit) that still work and resonate the most for me. I'm actually a sucker for cine-magic.
Posted by: mernitman | August 16, 2011 at 10:26 AM
Hi Billy,
I agree that films can have a different affect(or effect?) depending on the time and circumstances in which they are seen and can change over time. However for me I looovveedddd Amelie the first time I saw it! I watch it on a regular basis,it's one of the films I run to when the world is being a little to harsh and I need somewhere to hide. The scene where she melts is such a delightful and truthful metaphor. I been there. I think the scene where she grabs the blind guy is not to rush him past things but more to take him from being alone on the sidelines and rush him INTO life,into the smells and sounds of everything around him. I may be wearing my rose colored glasses with that film but hey,it floats my boat. Cheers,
Judith
Posted by: Judith Duncan | August 18, 2011 at 01:12 AM
Judith: It's a big boat with plenty of fellow passengers, if you read the comments above.
Posted by: mernitman | August 18, 2011 at 08:38 PM
Billy, you're BACK!
I'm so glad to find you back on the blog that I can't think of a single thing to say about Amelie.
Lost for words.
That's how much we missed you.
Posted by: Joanna Farnsworth | August 25, 2011 at 08:16 AM
Aw, Joanna! Great to hear from you. Looking forward to when you find your words again ;->
Posted by: mernitman | August 26, 2011 at 06:00 AM
I really loved it the first time I saw it, but then I fell asleep in the middle everytime I tried to watch it again!
Have you seen Jeux D'Enfants? It was a bit hit among my college crowd, as the dark version of Amelie (very dark). It's what originally made Marion Cotillard a star.
Posted by: theoncominghope | September 16, 2011 at 01:36 AM
OnComing: Not familiar with "Jeux," and you've piqued my curiosity...
Posted by: mernitman | September 18, 2011 at 02:35 PM