French Made

Not long ago, I saw the French film Amélie. (At least, that's the significantly abbreviated title by which "Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain" is known in the U.S.) The narrative is a bit hard to encapsulate; the movie is almost more about a way of telling a story. But it essentially follows a young woman who tries to "do good" for people in the most playful ways possible.

Though the movie doesn't rise to any tremendous dramatic heights, it has an undeniable and infectious sense of joy about it. It's not anything that makes you think too deeply, but you have fun watching it, and a smile on your face when it ends. There's something oddly retro about the movie. It's childish in its spirit, plays like a bedtime storybook, and is the most chaste love story I've seen in years.

As the title character, Audrey Tautou makes the movie. For the love of cinema, if the only thing you've seen her in was the humdrum The Da Vinci Code (in which she was cast as a token French performer in a cast of Hollywood stars), see Amélie as soon as you possibly can. She makes you buy into fantasy of the film.

Ultimately, though, a movie this "cute" can probably only rate so high in my estimation. There's craftsmanship I can appreciate here, but nothing to make me say "wow" -- only to politely smile and say, "well, that sure was nice." Maybe my inner child just died a little more. All I know is, I found the movie very good, though not fantastic. I do rate it a B though, and give it my recommendation.

Having now dispensed with the grade, I do want to remark on one more negative aspect of the film that can't be held against it -- the translation.

My French is terrible. I had a sprinkling of it in junior high, and then three semesters in college (over a decade ago now... damn). I've had virtually no opportunities to use it since. I probably couldn't form a complete sentence of my own in French if I needed to. But listening to French, I still have the ability to pick out maybe every fifth word from a slowly-spoken sentence.

I give all this background so that you know how bad the translation of this film must have been for me to take any notice at all. Oh, the essence of every line was there, but it felt to me like as much as half the specific content was gone. In every scene, I'd hear words I'd recognize jumping out at my laboring brain, and not see them in the subtitles. It was as though text was expensive, and they'd decided to only pay for so much. I found it frustrating, as it seemed like some big piece of the flavor of the film, the particular patter and nuance of the dialogue, was being lost.

My opinion of the movie was not reduced by the translation, but I do have to wonder if I would have had a higher opinion of it had I been able to understand it in the original French. It also gave me pause regarding translations of foreign films in general. This is not the first time I've noticed less-than-accurate translation in a French film (Les Pacte des Loups, aka Brotherhood of the Wolf comes to mind). Are all films being translated from all languages with a similar lack of fidelity? What a disservice to a lot of great movies, if so.

In any case, that digression is over. Let me end with a brief restatement of the real point here. Amélie is a brisk and whimsical movie you should take a look at if you haven't already.