Amelie

Amelie is a French movie about a girl who is born into an unusual family where she is so afraid of her father, who is a doctor, that when he gives her yearly exams her heart starts pounding; so much so that her father diagnoses her with a heart problem.  Also, her mother dies when she is young by a suicide jumper falling on her.  Fast forward a few years and we see her in her twenties, she likes the simple life and keeps to herself.  She is in her bathroom and she drops her perfume cap at hearing about the death of Princess Dianna, when she drops it she notices there is a loose tile.  Under the tile she sees a tin of old toys, she tracks down the owner and when she gives the tin back to him, he is overjoyed.  This moved Amelie to start doing more good deeds for other people. 

In this movie there are number of different filming techniques that help make the movie what it is, including lighting, coloring, and point of view.  All of these add up to make the film work together.  Without them the movie would be lacking parts that help bring everything together.  By using these techniques we can see how the characters develop, react, and interact with others. 

Lighting, without proper lighting we are constantly wondering what is going on throughout.  If the lighting is lacking then the whole movie is lacking because the clarity to the viewers is affected.  I believe that the lighting in the movie was done right, when she was in her bathroom the correct amount of light and backlight was given to give the viewers a clear picture of what was happening.  Something as simple as allowing us to see the tin of toys can make a big difference in a movie.  When Amelie gets back at some people in the movie, grocery store man and others, the lighting keeps her face lit which helps show that she is fearless and confident with her actions.  In other times, such as when she is walking down the staircase and the single back light is used, this shows contrast between what is going on and Amelie herself. 

Coloring is also very key to this movie.  Color is used to symbolize characters’ personality traits and what they are in search of.  For example, the color blue is used in the characters clothes, props, and some lighting to show Amelie’s search for happiness and at times it shows what makes her happy.  Many times the characters are seen wearing blue and it shows that they are in search of something that makes them happy.  When she is at the train station and she sees Nico there is a poster behind him that is lit with a blue backlight showing that Nico is something that will make her happy.  The use of yellow, green, and brown set up a dull feel to the movie, when Amelie wears her red sweater the room is full of these colors which helps set her apart from everything. 

The next key to making this movie work well is the use of different points of view used throughout.  Two points of view that I noticed a lot were objective and subjective.  These two points of view help display where the action is taking place and help us interpret the action.  When Amelie is in the phone booth and calls the other phone booth to give the tin of toys back, an objective point of view is used because we are seeing the action take place from an outside view.  The action is taking place farther away but we can still fully see what is happening.  At times when she is in her own bathroom and when she breaks into the other bathroom a subjective point of view is used because we see the action taking place from her point of view.  We are up close and can see the action taking place.  By using the subjective point of view here it allows us to see everything that she does, if other points of view were used we may not have seen what was going on.  Or if we did catch what was going on it would not have been very clear.