Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1039 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-07-08
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 116 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
With its use of special effects to express the main character's internal emotions, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie could have been mistaken for a French version of Ally McBeal; however, unlike Ally--"woe is me for I cannot find a man"--McBeal, Amelie is not distressed by the lack of men in her life, in fact the whole idea of sex seems to amuse her no end. Basic pleasures such as cracking the top of a Crème Brule offer her all the sensual satisfaction she needs and her existence in the "Paris of Dreams" is the stuff of fairy tales. Indeed, this cinematic treat must have worked wonders for the Paris tourist board: Jeunet's beautiful interpretation of Parisian life is depicted in all the vibrant colours you would expect from the director of Delicatessen.

On the DVD: Amelie has received an additional disc for this special edition release. Disc 1 is the same as the original single-disc release, with a choice of DTS or Dolby 5.1 sound and an 16.9 anamorphic widescreen picture with optional director's commentary. The second disc contains the new special features and, just like original disc, a lot of thought has gone into the access menu with its lavish graphics offering the choice of entering the Café, the Canal or the Station. Yet the most exciting extra in name--"Audrey Tautou's funny face"--is simply a series of out-takes which does little more than allow you to warm to Tautou as a person. The home movie includes the transformation of Tautou into Amelie and the creation of the "photo-booth album". There are also interesting interviews with Jeunet and the cast and crew, and a nice little section themed around the gnome and his travels. Along with this is a storyboard-to-screen exposition, behind-the-scenes pictures, scene tests, teasers and trailers. All in all a decent enough package, but hardly warranting the special edition label. It's hard not to wonder why Momentum didn't offer this set two months earlier. --Nikki Disney

DVD Description
DVD Special Features :

Dolby 5.1 and DTS
16.9 Anamorhphic
Director's Commentary (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
Storyboards
Script to screen features
Teaser trailers
Trailer
Talent Q & A feature
Director's interview
Audrey Tautou's funny face feature
Making of Amelie featurette

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

QUIRKY BUT FULL OF GALLIC CHARM! ****
Amélie is the feel good whimsical romantic comedy that has broken all French box office records (around 8 million people in France alone have seen it), charmed many British audiences and is now winning lots of fans in North America. But is it any good? In short, yes. It's very good.

Don't worry about the subtitles, there's no problem in following screenwriters Guillaume Laurant and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's plot. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's doe-eyed heroine Amélie (Audrey Tautou) has had a lonely childhood and an unsatisfying love life. Her father is a glum recluse, who never offered her any physical contact, warmth or love (but who cherishes his garden gnome) and her neurotic mother was killed by a suicide jumper who hit her on the way down outside Notre Dame. As a result, Amélie has become wrapped up in her dreams as a way of escaping her lonely life. By day, she waits table at a Montmartre brasserie frequented by many eccentric characters and at night, she goes home alone to a little box flat with a rear window from where she can spy on her neighbours and dream of what their lives must be like. Until one day when she discovers a box of discarded toys left behind in her apartment 40 years ago and begins a search for the man-boy who once owned them. Finding that she can make a difference to other peoples lives, Amélie's own life is given a new purpose and a new vocation but can she find love and happiness for herself?

Some critics have complained that Amélie's is a right wing exercise in nostalgia and that Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's depiction of Montmatre is too lushly perfect, whilst others have criticised it for being nothing more than a rip-off of Jane Austen's Emma. All of these criticisms are unfair (although there are obvious comparisons in the plot that can be made to Emma) and downright offensive. There is no obvious political agenda on display here and so what if the streets of Montmatre are picture postcard friendly? Amélie's Montmartre may just be a dream but it's a beautiful dream. Who cares if in the real France most people eat at Burger King or Mc.Donalds or shop at a supermarket for their groceries? Amélie's Montmartre is an enchanted place, where the water's of the canals are blue and sparkling and the scenery picture perfect.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Director of the much darker Delicatessen and City of Lost Children), has created his own universe and populated it with some wonderfully eccentric characters, thus allowing some of France's finest actors to charm their audience with a proliferation of visual humour and pseudo-philosophical dialogue. In particular, Serge Merlin, the wise old artist from across the street, conjures up magical wisdom and steals most of his scenes, as does Rufus, as Amélie's morose father. However, make no mistake this is the rather beautiful and elfin-like Audrey Tautou's movie and she captures your heart with her big doe-eyes and her mischievous smile and plays the role of Amélie to whimsical perfection.

Amélie will capture your heart; make you smile, make you laugh and send you off into the night glowing happily, with a little bit of faith and hope in life restored. We all like to feel good about ourselves and Amélie is well worth checking out for anybody who enjoys a little romance and dares to dream.

Why can't I give it a six?
You're sat outside a cafe. There's a smell of roasting coffee in the air, the table has a red check cloth and a local is playing accordion on the corner of the street. Get the picture?

Amelie is everything that is beautiful about the city of Paris. Or to take it a little further, it's everything that's beautiful about life and humanity itself.

Pourquoi monsieur, I hear you say?

Well firstly because it is a feelgood movie, without the overpopular American syrupy sentiment. And there's more. It's got humour. It's moving. It's colourful. And it's quirky in only a way the French can be.

Visual poetry is the only way I can describe it.

I'm not really sure if I can compare it to anything else I've seen - possible because I've never been big on subtitles. But this one's definitely worth the eye strain. Don't think you'll be able to hone your O-Level French on this though...without the words, you'd not get further than "Pour allez a la gare" in the first scene.

Anyway, let's cut the chat. Amelie is your film if - like me - you love the romanticism that is France. It's also your film if you believe in a sense of karma and good winning over in the end.

So, if you're someone who gets a buzz about the thought of hopping on the Eurostar and taking a trip to the capital of chic, buy it now.

Oh, and before I go, the second CD does't add an awful lot more to the film. There are a couple of quirky spots, but not much else. But with a film this perfect, who cares?!

An enchanting fairy tale.
OK, this is not J-L Goddard [thank goodness], Truffaut, or Resnais. Sometimes you just want to be wrapped up in a warm feeling, entertained supremely well and end up smiling... ref "M. Hulot's Holiday." No one gets blown away by monster firearms, no one grinds on about their existential angst and the brief scenes involving sex are very much tongue-in-cheek. The pro film critics slated it as soft-centred and soggy but we all know they have had their souls turned to concrete and have forgotten the simple pleasure to be had from a film that sets out to produce the same effect as your first glimpse on Christmas morning of a Christmas tree strewn with presents. No need to elaborate the story. Just sit back and have a good time. Sheer delight.