Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2576 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-04-15
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 116 minutes

Video Description
DVD Special Features
English subtitles
Commentary by director Jean Pierre Jeunet
Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 6.1
Anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen 16:9

Synopsis
Amelie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) is a young woman who glides through the streets of Paris as quietly as a mouse. With wide eyes and a tiny grin, she sees the world in a magical light, discovering minor miracles every day. A shy and reserved person whose favorite moments are spent alone skimming stones into the water, Amelie was raised by a pair of eccentrics who falsely diagnosed her with a heart problem at the age of six and so limited her exposure to the outside world. Now a free and independent woman, Amelie wears a bob that curls in every direction and dresses in red. With a job in a cafe and an aptitude for spying on her neighbors, Amelie entertains herself by enacting a series of homemade, kindhearted practical jokes. She returns a long-forgotten box of childhood knickknacks to its proper owner, she sends her father's garden troll on a trip around the world, and she creates a love connection at the cafe between the hypochondriac druggist and a beer-drinking grouch. But when the day is done, Amelie finds one stone unturned, and decides to work her magic on the quirky object of her affections, Nino Quincampoix (Matthieu Kassovitz), whom she has never met.
Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who codirected DELICATESSEN and THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN with Marc Caro) presents AMELIE, an aesthetically gorgeous and inventive film. The rich, glowing color scheme is offset by flashbacks in black and white archival footage that give short biographies of each character. A soft-spoken narrator guides viewers through this enlightening fairy tale, which sometimes speeds through the streets and other times drifts in slow motion. AMELIE is humorous, questioning, and strange, and it will change the lives of all who watch it, if only for a short while after leaving Amelie's world.

Customer Reviews

Utterly brilliant!
I had this DVD in my collection for approx a year, given highly recommended by a friend, but kept picking it up then down again, being put off by subtitles. Eventually one Saturday afternoon, with nothing on TV, I thought I would give it a try, fully expecting to give up part way through. How wrong I was..... A captivating, entertaining, picturesque and thoroughly enjoyable film. One of those that you want to know how it is going to end, yet you really don't want it to end as that will mean you can't watch it anymore, if that makes sense?!!

Finding love
This superb film is about the oddball girl of the title, and how she comes to find love through the strange characters that surround her in her life.

The opening section of the film is very funny as we are told of each characters personal likes and dislikes. These are not earth shattering things, but the trivial things that we all (OK most of us) take for granted like cleaning out the toolbox. The film uses a narrator to tell us these things, and this technique works well, mainly because the film is wonderfully well-written. Because of this what seems completely illogical at some points all falls beautifully into place.

Amelie it turns out although a shy and withdrawn girl on the surface, has a sharp and scheming mind which leads to some marvellous scenes, all of which I might add are directed with a huge amount of style and panache. For a film just over two hours long it maintained my interest virtually continuosly and its certainly one that I will be watching again.

Its a film like this that makes you realise what a lot of rubbish is coming out of Hollywood these days. I say that as a person who is not a fan of foreign language films. However this is something very special and I can't do justice to it in a short review. See it for yourself and find out.

Wonderful, funny and charming
Audrey Tatou. Audrey Tatou. Audrey Tatou. I couldn't ask for more of Audrey Tatou. This film is, in a word... brilliant! A real, real feel-good film. One that will make you laugh loads of times; one that will make you feel imaginative, like Amelie, and it'll make you feel a mile high! It is a marvelous picture. Random, magical, weird, but stunning! A real watch. Such a good movie!