LE FABULEUX DESTIN D'AMÉLIE POULAIN (Amélie, or Amelie From Montmartre, 2001) ***1/2 What it lacks in coherence and believability, which omissions are dogheartedly intentional, is more than compensated with excessive and appropriate portions of sauteed prime French character. An extraordinary number of tricks not in the book are pulled out to ensure originality and individualism and they come off as beautiful side trips rather than distractions. Much would seem to be premised on that eternal inspiration, so spectacularly pigeon-holed in Repo Man as the overlapping "latticework of coincidence," a point brought home when the video clip within the film celebrates Sister Rosetta Tharpe, whom I had just discovered with great joy earlier in the week. In fact the internal videos from Audrey Tautou to her artist friend are all fantastic, somewhere Ed Wood is writhing in joy as should be we all. For all its spectacular trappings, brilliant devices, extraordinary performances, tremendous plot twists, spectacular shots and general patchwork of the human divine courtesy of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, this at its best is a celebration of nothing besides the spectacular glory of the everyday and taken for granted, a toast to human potentiality and the very broad spectrum within which it may manifest itself, and the confirmation that we do in fact take part every day in a cosmic drama in which nothing happens by chance.
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