Archetypes in Film: How Amelie challenges notions of patterns and archetypes of the fairytale rom-com through characterization, idiosyncratic colour palates and a transient nostalgia.
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 film is considered a world-wide cult, winning four Cesar Awards and two BAFTAs, as well as being nominated for 5 Academy Awards.
Amelie is often categorized as a foreign romcom, but despite the obvious cliches of the genre including the happy end, the movie is both darker than it is funny, and lonelier than it is romantic. Amelie has been criticized as whimsical and ‘sugary’ but it actually deals with some hard truths of loneliness, grief and even sexual harassment. The narrative of Amelie does reflect the conventions and cliches of a fairytale, and of romcoms, but the sensitive arthouse style it has been approached with challenges the traditional use of patterns and archetypes found in narratives.
The film follows the curious life of day-dreamer Amelie Poulain. Upon hearing the news of Princess Diana death in 1997 Amelie drops a lid of a perfume bottle in shock, which rolls and loosens a tile in her bathroom, behind which is hidden a box of a little boys toys. This clear incident gives the movie a strong sense of time that is otherwise lost in this nostalgic version of Paris. From this one point in time, Amelie is reminded of the transience of life and decides to intervene in the lives of those around her. One small act of goodwill towards a stranger's long-lost box of trinkets 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. There is minimal use of any other colours, especially blues, which are only used to highlight contrast - which gives the film a 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 the editor 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.
Amelie is very reminiscent of a place, and a culture but at the same time could be a story of anywhere, and any introspective person that is learning to find themselves, through loving the world. Amelie is based in a particular place and time, 90s Paris, but the nostalgic atmosphere of the movie, 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 icecream 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 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 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 cliche. The convention of falling for a social outcast, is found in the character of Nino in the film, the eccentric man who pieces together discarded photos from photo booths in a ‘family album’ of strangers, and who works in a sex shop, is 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 turner waitress is 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 through the use of unorthodox angles, like in this shot. An interesting thing about Jeunet’s use of angles in Amelie is the positioning of characters in each shot. 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. Amelie has 15 uses of technical effects, like the shaking crockery or the rolling perfume lid, but the most obvious effects are the computer graphics, that show Jeunet’s highly unorthodox style. The effects are dated to a 2019 eye, but are in keeping with the nostalgic Magic Realism of Amelie. 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. These literal visual metaphors are used 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.
Amelie refutes the statement that narratives are composed around patterns and archetypes, by Jeunet’s unconventional approach to romantic comedies. Clearly, there are patterns and 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 style.
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