Revolutionary Rants

As you probably know, one of Chris and I’s favourite films is Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie. When we heard he had a new film, we couldn’t wait to see it. The new flick - also starring Audrey Tautou - came out last year but we couldn’t make the cinema, as it was only showing at the Winnersh Triangle cinema in Reading (and was not on in Barnstaple), so Chicken brought me the DVD as a present in June. To cut a long story short, we only got round to sitting down together and actually watching it last night! Talk about a very long engagement…!

Anyway, it was a sad but good film. It caught the wet, cold, horror of the trenches and the general desperation of the First World War; you also felt very invested in Tautou’s character (perhaps a little to much as you almost didn’t connect with her fiancee). However, I felt that the Amelie style quirks - which worked so beautifully in the colour and oddness of that film - which cropped up quite often just didn’t fit here and also distracted from the impact of the overall story. We were also amazed by Jodie Foster’s incredible French!

Well worth a viewing if you like Jeunet/Tautou/French film, but not a patch on our favourite Parisian!