Amélie: Challenging the Archetypes of the Fairy Tale Rom-Com
by Gabrielle Hill-Smith
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 French Arthouse film ‘Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain’, stars Audrey Tautou as the isolated and naive Parisienne, Amelie Poulain, who decides to help the people around her in order to find a sense of justice in the world. The acclaimed film has gathered a worldwide cult-like appreciation for its individual cinematography, beautiful score, and intriguing characters, winning four Cesar Awards and two BAFTAs, as well as being nominated for 5 Academy Awards.
Amelie is often categorized as a romantic comedy, but despite its use of obvious cliches of the genre (the happy ending), the movie is both darker than it is funny, and lonelier than it is romantic. Amelie has been criticized as whimsical and ‘sugary,’ by some critics, yet it deals with some hard truths of loneliness, grief and even sexual harassment. While many aspects of Amelie’s narrative does indeed reflect the conventions and cliches of a fairy-tale romcoms, the sensitive arthouse style Jeunet creates challenges the traditional use of patterns and archetypes found in such narratives.
The film follows the curious life of day-dreamer Amelie Poulain. Upon hearing the shocking news of Princess Diana’s death in 1997, Amelie drops a lid of a perfume bottle which rolls and loosens a tile in her bathroom, behind which is hidden a box of a little boy's toys. This one incident gives the movie a strong sense of time that is otherwise lost in this whimsical nostalgic version of Paris. From this tiny event, almost a parody of a 'meet-cute' (considering it is the catalyst between two characters meeting, literally getting the ball rolling), Amelie is reminded of the transience of life and decides to intervene in the lives of those around her. Shortly, this small act of goodwill towards a stranger spirals into a full-blown escapade of a self-made Good Samaritan.
Magic Realism is a convention of narrative in literature that can also be utilised in films. Including Amelie, some other popular examples are Like Water For Chocolate, Beasts of the Southern Wild and the films of Hayao Miyazaki. It is defined as a narrative that ‘expresses a primarily realistic view of the real world while also adding or revealing magical elements.’ Most of the magic realism found in Amelie lies in Jeunet’s highly distinctive colour palette- the vibrant and deeply saturated hues of red, yellow and green. Jeunet's minimal use of any other colours, especially blues, which are only used to highlight contrast - gives the film it's memorable and unique look. Jeunet’s idiosyncratic use of colour was achieved by filming on Kodak Vision cameras using 14, 18, 21, 25 and 27mm lenses. The editor used a common motif called “Digital Intermediate” which allows them to manipulate colours and emphasize certain aspects of the film through colour filters. Each colour holds certain symbolism, like the red shows Amelie’s passion and vitality, and the green shows hope. This in a way plays into the idea of fairy-tale archetypes, the symbolism a clear example of Jeunet's use and subversion of archetypes.
Amelie is very reminiscent of a specific place and culture but, at the same time, could be a story of anywhere, and of any introspective person learning to find themselves. The film is specifically set in 1990s Paris, but the film’s nostalgic atmosphere, lack of time-specific evidence aside from the news reports, show an idealised Paris lost somewhere in its own past. The accordion and piano driven non-diegetic score by Yann Tiersen helps give Amelie a sense of place, but the melodious qualities also give the film a sense of nostalgic wonder, accentuating its whimsicality. While time is somewhat transient in this film, place is highly important, as everything from creme brulee to the Sacre-Coeur are crucial elements of this film, and part of its global success - the romanticization of the city of love and light. Note the lack of grubby streets and graffiti; the real Paris is very different from Jeunet’s version reproduced for the film, which was shot on location but edited afterwards. to create this clean, nostalgic place of magical-realism. The real location of Colignon’s grocery store is a short walk from the Sacre-Coeur, I had the pleasant surprise of stumbling across it a few years ago when I was wandering around Paris, its green paint is peeling at it is covered in peeling flyers, and outside are ice cream fridges rather than fresh fruit and veggies. This film presents a highly romanticized picture-postcard version of Paris. Amelie grows up in a privileged middle-class version of Montmartre in Paris, and the film has been criticized for the lack of diversity, and for not being representative of what Paris actually is like, and that is where the pressure from being one of the most well-known French films comes across. It would be naive to say that the film is challenging all of the patterns, archetypes and conventions found in the rom-com genre.
Jeunet also uses character in an unconventional manner, challenging the archetypes of characters in films, and specifically in rom-coms. Jeunet uses close and wide shots of each character, giving an intimate portrait that is almost uncomfortable in its own intimacy, like when you accidentally touch a stranger. This reflects Amelie’s loneliness, an obsession with everyone she meets. From the very start we are introduced to each character through their likes and dislikes in a very intimate manner; for example, Amelie’s mother and her dislike of puckered fingers in the bath. Even the most minor of characters get this detailed introduction into their mindsets, rather than allowing the audience to judge the characters shallowly based on looks - in contrast think about, for example, the rom-com Wild Child - which is all about the visual cues, and costuming, in creating characterization.
Amelie Poulain is what the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows would describe as a 'sonderer', she has an imaginative quality to her which allows her to think about each stranger she passes by, each acquaintance she sees on a day to day basis. The people that she understands the most are actually those that she is least close to. In a way, her loneliness shows through the way she finds it hard to understand those she is close to.
“You mean she would rather imagine herself relating to an absent person than build relationships with those around her?”
The film is not driven by cheesy rom-com cliches and in that the characterization lacks the typical archetypes seen in rom-coms. For example, the protagonist does not change for a possible romantic relationship, but rather her character development arc comes from her doing good in the world. In a way some of the characters are the opposites of their archetypes, the hypochondriac chemist, for example, Georgette who works at the ‘Tabac’ at Le Deux Moulins, could be regarded as an ironic oxymoronic cliche. The convention of falling for a social outcast is also found in the film, in the character of Nino: the eccentric man who pieces together discarded photos from photo booths in a ‘family album’ of strangers, and who works in a sex shop. This stands as another cliche of the rom-com that has been twisted to almost beyond recognition in the strange whimsical symbolism of Amelie. Aside from Nino and Georgette, there are a myriad of minor characters whose lives Amelie touches. Joseph, the jilted lover of Gina, Amelie’s colleague, follows conventional tropes. Suzanne, the ex-circus performer turned waitress, is a trope unique to Jeunet. Hipolito the failed writer is again another trope of rom-coms. Dufayel - ‘the glass man’ who never leaves his flat and paints the same painting every year for 20 years, Bretodeau the man who she reunites with his long-lost childhood trinkets, Colignon, the grocer who bullies his assistant Lucien is once again a pattern found in characterisation, the person who takes advantage of his superiority. Amelie ensures that Colignon gets his comeuppance, however. And of course Amelie’s parents, who follow very little of the parental tropes found in narratives. Her mother; whose tragi-comedy death happens shortly after the start of the film, and her father who is obsessed with building a garden shrine to her mother, who both display symptoms of OCD, and refuse Amelie a ‘normal childhood’ due to her heart condition (which as it turns out is a ploy by her parents to shelter their daughter).
Another way that Jeunet composes a narrative while disregarding conventional patterns and archetypes is the way he frames a shot using unorthodox angles. Amelie Poulain is almost always shown from slightly above or below eye level, usually very close up. The wide shot combined with this angling technique can lead to dramatic shots that highlight the unusual facial characteristics of the cast. The use of wide camera also ensures a depth of field that allows all the detail of the shot to be seen. This gives the film a slightly surreal feeling, while allowing us to get close to the characters. the cinematography is quite sensual at times, through the use of close camera angles that bring us into the action - for example the shot where Amelie plunges her hand into the bag of grain.
In keeping with the idea about magical realism, and shifting conventions of rom-coms, Amelie uses technical and animated effects. The film has 15 separate uses of technical effects, like the shaking crockery or the rolling perfume lid, but the most obvious effects are the computer graphics, which show Jeunet’s highly unorthodox style. The effects are starting to feel dated to a 2020 eye, but remain in keeping with the nostalgic Magical Realism style of the film. The animated effects are highly original, with inanimate objects coming to life to comment on the action, or, a mortified Amélie turning into water and draining to the floor. Jeunet uses these effects as literal visual metaphors in order to create a narrative that is almost omniscient into the imaginations of the characters. These effects were created using a combination of post-production digital manipulation, 3D animation and technical effects during filming, like the stone skimming.
Jeunet’s unconventional approach to romantic comedies shifts our perspective of patterns and archetypes within the genre. Clearly, there are archetypes found in the film, but it consciously avoids or disregards most of these conventions through its use of nostalgic Magic Realism, and the specific and intriguing techniques used to create this unique style. And that's why I believe that Amelie is truly a uniquely beautiful and engaging film, as it allows us to think deeply about what the conventions of romantic comedies actually mean and why we use them.
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Image credit: New York Times
