BP’s Top 100 Movie List Challenge #95: Amelie, by Sarah Brinks

I’ve decided to undertake a movie challenge in 2017. This seemed like a good way to see some classic movies that I’ve tragically never seen. The Battleship Pretension Top 100 list has a good number of films I hadn’t seen before so it is a good source for my challenge.

There is so much to like about Amélie: the great characters, the colorful cinematography, the strange and delightful side plots, the performances, the soundtrack, basically all of it. Amélie is about a woman who was a lonely and creative child who grows up to be a waitress in Paris. When Princess Diana dies, it sets off a series of events that are the focus of the film. She finds a hidden treasure that a child hid in her apartment years ago. This starts Amélie trying to help people around her. She returns the box to the man who hid it which helps him repair his relationship with his daughter and grandson. She protects the local grocery boy by messing with his boss. She helps her neighbor to believe her dead husband who left her actually loved her. She helps her father end his mourning for her mother and leave his house. And she helps one of her coworkers find a connection with one of their regulars at the café.

When she meets Nino he is scraping under a photo booth at a metro stop. She finds a photo album he drops and she becomes invested in finding him and returning it. As she gets to know him without actually meeting him she begins to fall in love with him. But she is unsure about her feelings and the man who lives downstairs becomes an emotional guide. It is a delightfully unconventional love story that is equal parts charming, quirky, and romantic.

I think what I like so much about Amélie is that it is a celebration of the imagination and people who are dreamers. Both Amélie and Nino are dismissed by much of society because they are dreamers. Amélie was alone a lot as a child and she created a vast internal life to combat the loneliness. Both Amélie and Nino interact with imaginary characters and see things that aren’t real. Their imaginative lives make them fun to watch and makes their love story unique and endearing.

I’ve decided to rate each film using an arbitrary scale based on the board game Battleship (lowest: Destroyer, Submarine, Cruiser, Battleship, highest: Carrier)

Amelie rating: Carrier