{"id":271,"date":"2006-06-06T13:25:19","date_gmt":"2006-06-06T20:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/2006\/06\/06\/le-fabuleux-destin-damelie-poulain\/"},"modified":"2022-08-31T16:08:04","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T20:08:04","slug":"le-fabuleux-destin-damelie-poulain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/le-fabuleux-destin-damelie-poulain\/","title":{"rendered":"Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Le Fabuleux Destin d’Am\u00e9lie Poulain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of my favorite films of all time. It’s just such a movie<\/em>, you know? The same is true of virtually all of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s films; I have such fond memories of seeing Delicatessen on a crappy 16mm print at college, City of Lost Children<\/a> at the Cambridge Film Festival, and Am\u00e9lie and A Very Long Engagement at the Paris Theater in New York City. We won’t mention Alien Resurrection, OK?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although a big hit in France, my understanding is that there was something of a backlash against it, due in part to its literally candy-colored portrayal of a storybook Montemartre far removed from reality. Also, a reviewer in Sight & Sound (a film journal whose opinion I nearly always respect, if not always agree with) utterly slammed the film, apparently personally offended by the sexual politics. But I find Am\u00e9lie so delightful, inventive, and so full of feeling that I can confidently state anybody that hates this movie just hates movies, period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite films of all time. It’s just such a movie, you know? The same is true of virtually all of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s films; I have such fond memories of seeing Delicatessen on a crappy 16mm print at college, City of Lost Children at the Cambridge Film Festival, and Am\u00e9lie and A Very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,2],"tags":[1309,1310,39,1126],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5-stars","category-movies","tag-amelie","tag-audrey-tautou","tag-france","tag-paris"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/06\/amelie-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-4n","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":140,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/the-city-of-lost-children\/","url_meta":{"origin":271,"position":0},"title":"La Cit\u00e9 des enfants perdus (The City of Lost Children)","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"February 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"After having my mind blown by Delicatessen in college, I managed to catch The City of Lost Children in the 1995 Cambridge, England film festival. 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Interestingly, English subtitles indicate the films were apparently not silent in their original form, with narration and perhaps scores of their own. So not only is the audience's experience of the films\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Science is Fiction","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/science-is-fiction.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/science-is-fiction.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/science-is-fiction.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/science-is-fiction.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/science-is-fiction.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":763,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/avpr-aliens-vs-predator-requiem\/","url_meta":{"origin":271,"position":2},"title":"Hey, at least it was only 86 minutes long: AVP:R – Aliens vs. Predator – Requiem","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"April 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Ridley Scott's original Alien is one of the most effective and influential horror films ever made, and a personal favorite of mine, with no apologies. Its art direction and visual aesthetic were so far ahead of their time that pretty much only the hairstyles have dated, but the real keys\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "0 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"0 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/0-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/avpr-aliens-vs-predator-requiem-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/avpr-aliens-vs-predator-requiem-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/avpr-aliens-vs-predator-requiem-feature.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/avpr-aliens-vs-predator-requiem-feature.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/avpr-aliens-vs-predator-requiem-feature.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1881,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/tokyo\/","url_meta":{"origin":271,"position":3},"title":"Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Bong Joon-ho’s Tokyo!","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"August 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Tokyo! is a portmanteau film comprised of three shorts set in the eponymous city, all by directors not themselves from Japan: Michel Gondry and Leos Carax from France, and Bong Joon-ho from South Korea. Gondry's \"Interior Design\" is based on the comic book Cecil and Jordan in New York by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "3 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"3 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/3-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Yu Aoi in Tokyo!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/tokyo-yu-aoi.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/tokyo-yu-aoi.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/tokyo-yu-aoi.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/tokyo-yu-aoi.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/tokyo-yu-aoi.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1153,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/dark-city\/","url_meta":{"origin":271,"position":4},"title":"Into the never-ending night of Alex Proyas’ Dark City","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"September 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I recall Dark City being one of my favorite films of 1998, and I would have rated it quite highly had I been keeping score at the time. It is a bold science fiction film noir most obviously indebted to Blade Runner, but also to favorites Brazil (especially the sequences\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/dark-city-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/dark-city-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/dark-city-feature.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/dark-city-feature.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/dark-city-feature.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":485,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/happy-feet\/","url_meta":{"origin":271,"position":5},"title":"Is George Miller’s Happy Feet about bootyshaking or overfishing?","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"November 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Feet is a tough one to try to reduce to a single stars-out-of-five rating. It possesses two extreme split personalities, its lack of integration calling into question its integrity. 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