Amelie

For the last two days we have been watching Amelie in FTV. As we are doing World Cinema we are watching a French movie first. Most films nowadays come from Bollywood and ideas are often ripped off or stolen and made into Hollywood films which is mostly what we see. In these films one thing that I've noticed is the stories are often cliche and the characters are larger than life. In Amelie the film was very different to "normal" Hollywood films. The introduction to characters was done in quite a cute way. It was done by listing some things each character liked or disliked. It was quirky. As well as this the story was not some crazy far fetched thing. Sure it was slightly unrealistic, but it didn't focus on these larger than life or stereotypical characters, it focused on normal people living their everyday lives and trying to figure things out.

Audrey Tautou plays Amelie and she has been in 41 other films though she is best known for Amelie, The Davinci code, A Very long engagement and Pretty dirty things.

There are many interesting facts about the film

- The actual film was made in 2001 but the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet started collecting the memories and events that made up the story of Amelie in 1974

- Amelie is included in 101 movies to see before you die

- It was voted number 2 in Australia's favourite movie poll

- The selector at the Cannes film festival dubbed Amelie as uninteresting and it was therefore not shown at the festival

- The film was nominated for five academy awards

- It placed number two in empire magazines top 100 in world cinema