Have you ever thought that children and adults live in separate worlds? Well, at least separate planes of the same world? Whilst adults tend to see in the world answers, concrete realities, certainties, and calamities; children see, in the same world, questions, infinite possibilities, ambiguity, and miracles… Although we are all born as children (excluding, perhaps, Benjamin Button), at some point we all tend to leave child-whimsy behind… In popular culture, however, we sometimes see characters who never do, and through them, we get to see a world that we might have thought to have been lost forever. Amelie Poulin is one such characters.

From the opening credits of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie, we are reminded of some of the joys of childhood – blowing streamers, peeling glue from our fingers, letting carefully placed dominoes fall, digging our hands in bags of grain… The film tells the fabulous destiny of Amelie, an introverted young woman who, after returning a treasure box to the man who had lost it 40 years prior, discovers has a knack for soothing people’s inner pains. With garden gnomes that travel the world, letters thought to be lost, and ripped up photographs, Amelie starts changing the lives of those around her. What she doesn’t know is that her life is also about to change…

The true magic of Amelie lies in how the film manages to translate the wondering nature of Amelie Poulin into an equally marvelling film, with costumes and a set design that might make younger audiences think of Wes Anderson, a brilliant chaos that might make musical fans think of Moulin Rouge, and striking colours that might remind us of all of Pierrot le Fou. Amelie has served as a window to a world of whimsy and miracles for twenty-five years. This week, the Dukes rereleases this modern masterpiece of French cinema to remind us that “everything is amazing in some way, if you know how to appreciate it.”

By João Eduardo Lima Belchior

Book Tickets for Amelie