Amelie

I cannot believe I waited 19 years to see this film. I never thought I'd say it, but a flawless film has finally been achieved! Well, it was achieved in 2001. By Jean-Pierre Jeunet, in the form of Amelie! The story is perfectly written, the shots are expertly captured, and the acting is enough to blow your mind.

First of all, the acting. The lead actress, Audrey Tatou, displays a character so cheerful and full of life that she improves the world and the people around her. On watching the character improve the lives of people she didn't even know, it made me want to do the same! She was also so willing to sacrifice her own happiness and love for other people, she's just the perfect character. And the actress really seemed to understand the emotions that the character had and displayed them with finesse and believability. She's also beautiful, but actually beautiful like a real person, not that annoying Hollywood version of the word that no one ever actually looks like.

Another massive contributing factor to the high quality of the film is the writing, obviously. If the writers had not written a plot so intricate and engrossing, I would not have been so intrigued by the film and amazed when all was revealed- nor would I have found the little details so entertaining.

Speaking of the little details, they were what made the story so good! Lucien, the green grocer's assistant, was an expertly written character that I just wanted to mother and hug. The tricks she played on the green grocer were entertaining and funny, the way she helped the blind man cross the street and told him everything they were passing made the character even more endearing, and finally the globe trotting gnome was just hilarious and a genius concept in the story!

The shots were interesting because they really showed, first of all, the main characters emotions when she had done something right, and all the action going on. Like the way the psychotic man in the coffee shop is only interested in Gina, but the other woman is always in his view but never noticed- until Amelie plays her part.

So to conclude, the film is really just flawless. Everyone should watch it!

One Day

This particular mook fits into my theory about them quite well- a book that is aimed at grown ups does not make as good as a movie as children's books. I think that the reason for this is clear- its harder to convey absolutely everything that is contained in a book for adults, in a film. Children's books are a lot simpler! I think it is for this reason that they simply shouldn't have tried to make the film of One Day. They couldn't get across a lot of what the book did in an hour and a half, and in trying to they lost the essence of the book and the endearing qualities of the characters.

The first aspect that bothered me a great deal was Anne Hathaway. She was not right for the part at all- she was too pretty, too organised and too soulless. She did not the display the love that the character in the book shows for Dexter, but to be fair i think the film would have to be about five hours long to show the relationship in as much detail as the book. She also had a really bad "northern" accent. In fairness to the actress, she is very good at what she does- a light character with no substance breezing through a film where everything is fine and dandy in her life, then there's a problem, then she gets the guy. Where this particular film went wrong, in my opinion, is it tried to make it into one of these films whereas the book is so much more than that.

Hathaway's co-star, Jim Sturgess, did a better job than her but the character is still a lot less substantial than that of the books character. I don;t think that the actor displayed the despair that the actor felt at being alone with the child, nor the alcoholic womanising section, nor the redemption he went through on meeting Sylvie. He also had a much more substantial relationship with his parents than the film displays.

I am being harsh though, in the films defence, it would have been hard to convey everything the book did without being about 5 hours long. I just don't think they should have tried to make this particular mook, as it downplays the high standard that David Nicholls gets across in the book.

The Artist

So I said in my post about the Oscars that I might have been completely wrong about The Artist after I saw it. My conclusion is, I pretty much was. I wouldn't have gone to quite the extent that the awards did go to- for instance I don't think its a better film than Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I think that the characters in The Artist were very clichéd and predictable, which is a drastic contrast to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Talking of cliché's, this film did not sell itself short in terms of them. A silent film, with a dog, about a couple struggling to come together that has a massive climax, that live happily ever after? Please, give me a surprise in there somewhere. I am being harsh though, it was a cute story and a good insight for me into what silent films were like when they were made, and the characters in it were very entertaining in each of their own rights.

The first character to really catch my eye was the leading role- George Valentin, played by Jean Dujardin. I thought he really captured the essence of the character- the miserable home life (I'll get back to the wife shortly.), the doting fans and co-stars (and the flirting with said co-stars) and the general confidence and self awareness (masses of it) that I have been led to believe is detrimental to being an actor.

I was not very hopeful for Peppy Miller, played by Bérénice Bejo, at the start of the film but she did redeem herself... but then took another step backwards by buying all his possessions. I thought that was a bit creepy. But no, I expected her to be a pathetic young woman that doted on Valentin for the whole film, which she did do a little bit but she also became a massively successful star all on her own and she relaunched his career for him. So to conclude this character, I'm fairly unsure about her now.

I think it was the little characters that made this film so enjoyable. I thought the character of Valetin's wife was hilarious, although that was a negative portrayal of women (gold-digger!). I also thought Clifton was quite a cute and faithful character, I liked him. 

The music in the film is very good- considering the film is silent it has to be really- but it really does convey the action of whats going on to a massively high standard. Another high bar the film really hits is the parallelism between the stars in past cultures and those today- in relation to how quickly the film industry and how some stars can become completely obsolete.

All in all, I thought the film was endearing, interesting, cute and funny. Well done to Michel Hazanavicious, he certainly seemed to have reminded the academy of how good films used to be and he's most definitely given me an interest in silent films.