Jean-Pierre Jeunet's new film Am四ie had its Twin Cities premier at the Uptown Theater last Friday. Released in the U.S. just this month, I had already heard of its success in Europe and had seen a few intriguing previews. Yet I was still a little skeptical of this "hit French comedy."(The French make funny movies?) But what awaited me was indeed comedy. I was taken by surprise to find how upbeat and hilarious this film is. Initially the film advances solely through narration, which essentially profiles the major characters by giving lots of random information about their likes and dislikes (e.g. peeing next to strangers at the urinal; prune fingers in the bathtub). We are introduced to Am四ie Poulain as a child of six, and we see how her stifling parents and home life lead her into the role of a sincere dreamer. Eventually she reaches young adulthood and moves to Paris, working as a waitress at a caf指ith a host of other hysterical characters.
The basic premise of the film emerges when Am四ie, upon discovering a hidden box of trinkets stowed fifty years before by a boy who lived in her apartment, decides to seek him out and return it to him. If he is pleased, she is resolved to become a "habitual do-gooder."The antics she then takes on range from setting up her hypochondriac co-worker with one of the quirky regulars at the cafe, to cleverly sabotaging the apartment of the rude vegetable vendor in her neighborhood, to kidnapping her father's prized garden gnome statue and sending him Polaroids of it in front of Saint Basil's Cathedral and the Statue of Liberty (in an effort to encourage him to travel).
Audrey Tautou gives a delightful performance in the role of Am四ie; she is young, intensely beautiful and dark-haired in the tradition of good French film heroines. Tautou presents herself as a highly endearing character, one with whom the romantic in everyone will likely relate. But one of the interesting things about this film is that in many ways it is somewhat atypically Fre nch. Granted, there is the standard eccentric old man whom the heroine befriends, there is the frank sexual comedy, and there is that French Hand of Fate that never ceases to amaze (Am四ie's mother is killed when someone committing suicide by jumping off abuilding lands on her, but the loss isn't overly lamentable).
But this death aside, Am四ie is certainly the most lighthearted French movie I've ever seen, and in addition to its quick, witty comedy, it evolves into an incredibly sweet and quirky love story (the kind you wish would happen in your own life). Am四ie's love interest is Nino Quincampoix, played by the adorable Mathieu Kassovitz. He is a dreamer just like her and whiles away his time working in a sex shop (with no apparent effect on the irreproachability of his character) and compiling photo albums of rejected photo booth pictures from the train stations of Paris. The two pass each other by chance in the metro one day and share a very meaning look. They are then drawn into an anonymous, highly ch oreographed romance facilitated by posters in the metro asking when and where to meet and "Meet me at Sacr擦oeur at 2 p.m."notes slipped into pockets at caf市.
The cinematography of this film is very unique. The credits at the start of the film are projected against a montage of photographs and video footage of a young Am四ie, and the film is interspersed with various frames of recorded excerpts which give this film a very artistic, collage-like quality. There are a few film-animation special effects thatverge on the cheesy (you'll know what I'm talking about when you see them). But overall the cinematography rivals the plot in its originality.
If you want pithy humor, innocent romance, original cinematography, and a French film with an objective ending, don't miss Am四ie. If you have any of the dreamer 's sensibilities, you will be enraptured. And you may never again hear so much French and so much laughter in the same movie theater.
