Tag Archives: France

Le Fabuleux Destin D’Amelie Poulain – Movie Review

Amelie Poulain has led a very sheltered and overprotected life. Home-educated by over-bearing parents, she makes up her own fantasy world. When she eventually grows up and moves out to work at a Parisian Cafe, Amelie finds an old tin box containing a schoolboy’s forgotten memories.
It is then that Amelie decides to help others find love and happiness, which she does in a magical and splendid manner – not knowing that on her path to bring love and happiness to others , she will end up finding them herself.

The interesting thing about the movie is how all the characters interact with each other and how they bring this plot to be. If you take the plot in absolute value, there’s nothing extraordinary about it. But Amelie is an extraordinary movie because the way it handles this plot is brilliant. The chase between Amelie and her love interest is absolutely stunning, to say the least, let alone extremely intelligent.

The first ten minutes of Amelie are absolutely one of the best moments of film-making I have ever watched. Never have I been more positively surprised by a movie than I was with Amelie. You cannot but be instantly captivated with the exquisite narrative: “Le 3 Septembre, 1973, à 18h 28 min et 32 secondes….” It’s absolutely brilliant.
The movie ends with an almost similar style of narrative, giving the aspect of wrapping up the whole thing like a big box with a tidy ribbon.

Audrey Tautou gives a brilliant performance in her role as Amelie. She showcases the strong, independent girl persona perfectly and doesn’t shy away from showing compassion when other characters need it. She’s witty, fast, captivating…

The score by Yann Tiersen is absolutely stunning as well. If you haven’t listened to Comptine d’Eté, n°2, then you really must do so. To say it is a good musical composition would be an understatement. And it works perfectly well in the movie.

Le Fabuleux Destin D’Amelie Poulain is probably the best French movie I have ever watched. It made me appreciate having been taught French so I wouldn’t have to add up closed captioning to the movie and hide out some parts of the screen. It’s a whimsical, fun, care-free and simply happy. I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect movie but it’s pretty close. Everything just falls together in an excellent way in it: the acting, the cinematography, the music, the plot, Paris…
It is a must see for everyone who appreciates movies. And, again, if you’re not hooked by the first minute or so, I advise re-watching it. Because something would be definitely wrong if the absolute wittiness of the introduction sequence doesn’t grab you.

The Libyan Situation: Morally Baffling…



It is without understatement that I can say Colonel Gaddafi is a monster. That is as clear and true as the sun shining every morning in countries where the climate allows that.

He is a man who has been ruling his country with an iron fist for over forty years and he doesn’t look satisfied yet. He has done almost every single thing imaginable to stay in office, except eradicating the whole population of his country. Don’t worry, he is hell-bent on doing so as well. Just today, more than forty people were killed in a Libyan city, including children, while trying to stand in the way of armed forces opening fire on innocent people.

Even more so, Colonel Gaddafi set fire to the Libyan oil fields. If he can’t have them, why should anyone else, right?

Apparently no one.

After weeks of him murdering his people, it looks like NATO forces and Western countries “finally” took notice. I mean, they kept turning their blind eye on the dictatorships in the region. Why so? well, those dictatorships were providing them with oil and they were keeping their parts of a burning region at “peace”. What more could those countries ask?

But now Gaddafi was burning those oil fields. And oil prices had begun skyrocketing again. What were the NATO forces and armies of other Western countries (notably the US) supposed to do?

Oh yes, they intervene militarily. What’s the premise of this intervention? “humanitarian” reasons.

And here goes our moral dilemma… Gaddafi or NATO forces intervening in his country?

Sure Gaddafi does not have an reason to burn the oil fields. They are not his. They are his country’s riches. He also does not have any right to even order any of his armed forces to lay a hand on any of his people. But to say Gaddafi is sane is as credible as saying the Earth is the center of the universe. The man is a mad case. But that also does not even remotely justify what he’s been doing, which can be categorized as a genocide.

On the other hand, what gives foreign forces the right to barge into Libya and start bombarding the country left and right? They’re only there to secure their economical advantages with the oil, so to say they are there for “humanitarian” reasons is a big lie to anyone with common sense.

And there is it… our moral puzzle. Who is at more fault? the man single-handedly destroying his country? or the foreign armed forces trying to take the country by force?