![]() ![]() Watching this week, I realized my favorite side character is the failed writer, Hippolito, who hangs out at the café all day shooting the shit, which is honestly my dream. I feel like I can taste that morsel of chicken now, just thinking about it. Something about the way food and eating is represented in this food is so tactile. It's such an unexpected little moment.Īnother image that has lived in my brain forever is the old man, Dominique Bretodeau, sharing his favorite part of the roast chicken with his grandson at the end. It feels like a subversion of the typical gender roles - it's a pose we've seen lots with the woman blissfully cuddling and the man who lies back. I especially love Amélie and Nino's post-coital moment, when she's laying back smiling and he's cuddled against her with his eyes closed. The movie was rated R in America, but it should really be PG-13 - the nudity and sexual comments are incidental and very funny. It's just a part of their lives and a part of their world in a way that's not flashy. I also love the way this movie handles sex. It's so sensual, and they both seem so happy.Īmélie and Nino Quincampoix (Mathieu Kassovitz) share a tender moment. Victoria: My number one favorite moment is right at the end of the film, where Amélie and Nino are riding his motorbike, and she's holding on to him, and she presses her nose right into the nape of his neck. What are some of your favorite scenes or moments from Amélie? To this day, I think that this is a really wonderful learning tool for anyone that has an intermediate-level competency with a language and wants to expand their vocabulary. I did this many times with Amélie, and when I was in Besançon, I read the first three Harry Potter books in French. But something that my high school French teacher (Shoutout to Madame Spencer!) suggested I do in order to deepen my understanding of vocabulary was to watch movies in French without subtitles, follow context clues, and pause and write down words or phrases that were unfamiliar to me. But, this is less a function of my knowledge of French and more of how many times I've seen it. So, to that end, I can watch Amélie without English subtitles. Yes, I am throwing shade on people who studied in Paris, je m'en fous. This is different from studying in a place like Paris, where everyone you encounter will speak English to you immediately. Students came from all over the world to Besançon to learn French at the university's centre de linguistique appliquée (CLA), and at least 80% of my daily conversations were conducted in French. Without sounding too insufferable I want to provide some context, dear readers: I majored in French in college, and I spent a year studying abroad in Besançon, a city in the Jura mountains about an hour away from the Swiss border. The color scheme! The editing! The characters! It's so vibrant and fun and also feels deeply French, which means it is equal parts sad, weird, and horny. It was so different from anything I had seen before, and even today whenever I rewatch it I am a little mesmerized by it. Watching Amélie made me feel cool, obviously, and I would pin the beginning of my love and appreciation for film as an art form on that movie. Everyone knew this except 16-year-old Hayley). The first time I saw Amélie I was like, wow, there are actually COOL French movies out there?! Who knew? (Everyone. ![]() I had been taking French class since 6th grade, but aside from the occasional sappy film in a high school French class ( Les choristes, Le huitième jour, a handful of the Asterix movies, etc.) I didn't really watch a ton of French movies. This was how Amélie came into my life, and I absolutely LOVED it. I worked at a restaurant in high school, and one of my coworkers loaned me DVDs all the time of movies he really loved and wanted to talk about with someone. How do you feel about Amélie ? Can you watch it without English subtitles? If anything, it made me feel a little feral, since I, trapped in my house, feel a bit like Amélie, watching everyone else's lives pass by. One subplot, involving a café patron who won't leave the women employees alone, has not aged well.īut overall this movie was just as delightful as I remembered. In college I took French specifically so I could watch Amélie without subtitles, and I never got close (though I have added a daily DuoLingo practice to my life, so we'll see). The movie felt a little long, but maybe that was just because it’s not in English. Amélie, as a character, flirts dangerously close to a manic pixie dream girl, but she does not cross the line. I was nervous that it would not hold up, or might be too twee. I had not seen Amélie since high school (when I got the DVD from Netflix and watched it three times before sending it back), so I rewatched it this week. Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) in her cute little apartment.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |