For some reason I was under the impression that this movie would be quite vastly different from Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie, which, as I wrote, I really wasn’t so into the last time I watched it. However, though it’s obviously a far more subdued affair – it kinda plays at times like the whole sad black-and-white melodramatic fantasy Amélie has in bed early in that movie – I was pleasantly surprised by the similarities.

Audrey Tautou’s search for her lost fiancée – reported to have died in World War One, a report she stubbornly refuses to believe – is filled with as much humour, quirk, and pseudo-noir-ish intrigue as her quest for the strange passport photo guy, or the owner of the box of trinkets, etc, in Amélie. Even the tiniest peripheral characters are fleshed out in the same kind of quick cutaway montages as in the opening of Amélie, lots of information in every nook-and-cranny of film. I found myself utterly swept away, wondering why on earth it’s taken me so long to sit down and watch it.

Audrey Tautou is fantastic, better I think even than she was in Amélie. The dialogue is just as quirky – I seem to remember Jean-Pierre Jeunet talking on the DVD of Amélie about certain things that were difficult to subtitle, like Madeleine Wallace’s fitting name, and there are certainly some similar odd French phrases and bits of wordplay here which made me regret not knowing the language better – “A native of the Meuse. Or rather a naïve of the Meuse,” comes to mind, for example.

The film is just as visually arresting you’d expect from Jeunet and the visual effects, including some truly visceral battle work, are among the best I’ve ever seen. I thought, given the presence of Jeunet and Tautou (and, of course, Dominique Pinon), I’d find myself missing Yann Tiersen’s wonderful Amélie music – Angelo Badalamenti’s score is pretty perfect, though. The only thing, in fact, I find wrong with the movie is the distraction of Jodie Foster in her few scenes midway. Her performance is as flawless as always, and since it’s Jodie I for one can easily let it slide Nevertheless, she is a distraction the movie really doesn’t need, especially at that point in the story.

I’ve mentioned Amélie so many times in this review, it’s probably started to sound like an alien mantra when you read it lol, I apologise. I actually thought I might find myself referring to that movie, even after my disappointing last viewing, as the better of the two – imagined myself running back apologising for thinking less of it. In time, though, I know for certain that this is the one I’ll be watching more. It’s deeper … less … I don’t know, thrift-store-slash-Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul-ish. That’s clearly not the word I’m looking for. Both are great movies, don’t get me wrong – I think I’ve just watched the former one too many times, heard one too many overpraising reviews etc, and I’m probably just trying to redress the balance of the universe.

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