Amelie shows Dufayel Nino’s Scrapbook “Mystery Man” of Photo Booth
Innovative Film Technology
Creative Commons, Amelie. Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Miramax, 2001. Author’s Screenshot.
The film “Amelie” is a good medium to study the city of Paris. The film locations of the city of Paris are key elements in this love story. The Café des Deux Moulins, the Two Windmills, is a real café and street address in Montmartre. Montmartre, a bohemian historic district for artists and writers, fits for the cast of characters in this story. Famous landmarks, such as Sacre-Coeur, the Metro, the St. Martin Canal, the Windmills of Montmartre, the local Paris café are all still the center of social daily life and drama. The French culture of loving good food, talking and living in city Paris apartments where neighbors interact with a variety of characters is a French story.
This film became a success because of director Jeunet’s personal connection to Paris as a French filmmaker, talking about the odd “likes” and “dislikes” of the French people, exploring the corner café daily life and culture. It is the story of the young good-hearted working woman in Paris, and a French love story. It is a surreal film; a fantasy world, a deliberate retro look, half-way between the Belle Epoque such as the Renoir painting and 1997, the time of Princess Diana’s death in Paris. He has a cartoonist background, not film study. This has been his criticism, too.
An analysis of what the film teaches us about the city of Paris, is the beauty of Paris daily life, places and streets has inspired painters, writers, photographers and filmmakers in the past and continues today. France is the center of the art world. Paris had the first photograph, the Daguerrotype and also, the first film movie.
It continues to express new art directions with this film. Jeunet uses highly colorized and tinting to his scenes to warm and create this fairytale world of Amelie.
A street in Montmartre becomes golden and timeless compared to the photograph of the real street.
The tablecloth on the table flutters in the wind and the rabbit clouds are just some of these visual effects. It is the charm of this film to see these apparitions float back and forth between imagination and reality.