How others will see it. In the United States, Amelie was the foreign import surprise hit of late 2001. Audiences were charmed, and word of mouth spread. The perception that France is a magical land of romance, flair, and fashion no doubt aided the cause.
How I felt about it. Amelie has the advantage a starring a pretty young woman who gets lots of close-ups making cute faces. Eye candy always helps make a film more interesting.
Amelie might just set a record for most camera shots in a two-hour film. A typical scene is composed of a myriad of shots. Taken to an extreme, you end up with Amelie speculating on the number of couples having simultaneous orgasm (actually a rare event), depcted by a collage of two-second shots of unattractive couples grasping each other and screaming. How charming! How come American films don't do this?
Well, for one thing, Hollywood is about movie stars playing characters, and not about directors given free rein to make statements concerning the absurdity of sex. For another thing, all those two-second shots, colorful as they may be, comprise an arduous way of telling a story. The attention span, at least for me, is longer.
Sometimes, the eagerness to charm the audience interferes with logic. Amelie's mother is accidentally killed by a suicide jump from a building, while Amelie at her side is not injured. The statistical improbability of this combination of events boggles the mind. Amelie, as a small child, is naive enough to believe that a camera causes accidents. But she's wordly enough to sit on a roof and know when to remove and re-insert the cable plug during a soccer match that she isn't watching, but knows the "bad neighbor" is.
This character trait of assuming divine judgment later leads to her breaking and entering, and poisoning, electrocuting, etc. another mean neighbor. These are felony crimes here in the U.S., but perhaps in France such things are merely on the level of high school locker room pranks. One must be open-minded.
Another 'amazing' scene has Amelie walking a feeble, elderly blind man at a fevered pace through the local market, narrating all that she sees as if it is more exciting than overtime at the Super Bowl. I kept waiting for the man to tell Amelie, "Let go of my arm, you lunatic!"
With no responsibilities apart from her waitress gig, Amelie has free time for covert activities. These can be do-good, but end up concentrated on Nino, an awkward and gentle young man whom Amelie likes because his hobbies are even odder than hers.
Because it is a feel-good movie, though, everything is sure to work out. And they're sure to spend the rest of their days recklessly riding together on a bike, making happy faces at each other. What more can one want from life?
Additional reading: The Garden Gnome Liberation Front.