Amélie: Deep Thoughts about French vs. American Culture, Helping vs. Meddling, and Delightful Romance vs. Problematic Programming Artwork

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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Comedy Podcast

Amélie: Deep Thoughts about French vs. American Culture, Helping vs. Meddling, and Delightful Romance vs. Problematic Programming

April 07, 2026 • Sister podcasters raised by 80s and 90s movies: Tracie Guy-Decker, lover of animation, Muppets, comedy, and feminism & Emily Guy Birken, storytelling nerd, mental health advocate, and pop culture aficionado • Episode 131

0:00 | 52:52

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It's better to help people than garden gnomes.

When Tracie rewatched cult classic Amélie, the 25-year-old film delivered visual metaphors, magical realism, and romance that delighted as much as they did a quarter century ago. There were also moments that did not age as well as nostalgia would have suggested, and others offered cultural commentary that wasn't quite fleshed out.

The assumptions underlying the central romance between Amélie and Nino seemed to suggest that each of us has one true love out there. Tracie calls bullshit. The titular character Amélie decides to make it her mission to help those around her, but is she really helping? Is it possible Amélie is on the autism spectrum? And if yes, what are the implications of that?

In the conversation between the sisters, they wonder about what might get lost–and found–in translation for American viewers of this film, or any consumers of movies created by and for a different culture. Whether the quirky characters (and their attitude toward romance) are quintessentially French or just delightfully weird, the visually beautiful film remains deeply enjoyable.

So, my little listener, you don't have bones of glass. You can take life's knocks. If you let this chance pass, eventually, your heart will become as dry and brittle as my skeleton. So, go listen, for Pete's sake!

Pop Culture Is Still Culture

SPEAKER_01 0:00

And so again, she meddled and gave each of them what she thought they wanted and needed, but not what they expressed that they wanted and needed. Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it's worth talking and thinking about. And so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. I'm Tracy Guy Decker, and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I will be sharing my deep thoughts about the 2001 film Amelie with my sister, Emily Guy Birken, and with you. Let's dive in. Okay, Em, I know you've seen this movie because we have talked about it. Tell me what's in your head about Amelie.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

There's quite a bit in my head about this movie. I loved it, so people may or may not know I was a French major in college, in addition to being an English major. We've talked a little bit before about my love for French. I was very much a francophile. And I spent six months in Paris in college. And then my name is Emily. And so when I was first introduced to this film, a friend of mine was just like, oh my god, you will love this. The main character is named after you. It's all in Paris. It is delightful. So that's how a friend of mine told me about it. I think I saw it in the theater when it was like independent theater, like limited run type thing. And then I watched it over and over again. I introduced my now husband to it. And it was funny what he took away from it, because we met two years later in 2003. Uh a few weeks after I showed it to him. We went to like Costco or something like that. And we were looking at like these giant containers of like rice and like dried beans. And he's like, I really don't know what I would do with that other than make like a French girl and just put my hands in it. And I was just like, that is not at all what I took from the film, but okay. So, but what I remember, Audrey Tattoo being just adorable. Yeah. Yeah. I remember appreciating, because one of my quote-unquote favorite things to do was critique the geographical inaccuracies of Paris in American movies set in Paris. So I really appreciated the just the Paris of Amelie because it's a French film made and made by French people who actually know that you can't get from to Notre Dame in 10 minutes. So I loved that. I loved the love story because I love love stories. I loved how she helped all the people in her orbit because I love found family misfits, that charming misfits. I also really loved that because I was such a francophile, I ended up seeing a lot of these actors in different films because I would watch French cinema in other places. And in fact, Nino has a very small part in the fifth element because and now I'm blanking on his name, but the director of the fifth element is French. So those are a few of the things that are in my head, but there's quite a bit. I got really mad when whichever travel site used the roaming gnome as their mascot because it was like, no, that belongs to that delightful movie, and I don't want it to be something that everybody knows. So I was a bit of a gatekeeper. So tell me, why are we talking about it today?

Emily’s Paris Lens On Amelie

What We’re Testing In This Film

The Story And Characters Refresher

SPEAKER_01 3:52

So, you know, it's on the list, and we were planning, and I was like, oh, that film, I want to see that again. I watched it, I was already out of the house. So we weren't, I had graduated from college by the time this was out. So we weren't living in the same place, you and I, but like the name and the French, it reminded me of you. So I wanted to watch it. And actually, Audrey's Tattoo with the dark hair and big eyes reminded me of you as well. And I found the there's a lot of magical realism in this movie, and I found the sort of visual metaphors like conveyed through the screen, like so delightful. It was just really like in my memory, really, unlike any other film, kind of gave me visual metaphors, and I love metaphors so much. That's really what was in my head about Amelie, and I wanted to revisit it now. So there's not a whole lot at stake for me. There actually probably is more at stake for you based on what you just said than for me. But it is a film that I have loved. And so that was why it was on the list, and that's why I wanted to do it now. So before I tell you, sort of remind you of like some of the characters and things, let me tell you some of the postcards from the destination that I want to talk about in our analysis. I want to talk about, like you kind of named American movies set in Paris versus this French movie set in Paris. I want to talk about French versus American perspective because I found one article written in English by a French person who had some a bone to pick with this movie that like completely went over my head. I don't want to spend a lot of time there, but I do want to like briefly talk about the way a piece of art made in one culture, like when it's consumed in another culture, kind of want to talk about in the abstract. I saw one critic suggest that maybe Amelie is on the autism spectrum, the character. And I want to talk about that. Like that really is interesting to me. And I see why they say that. So we'll spend some time there. You named that like her helping everyone in her orbit was something that you liked about this movie. I want to talk about helping versus meddling because I think that there's there are some cases where her help maybe she should have kept it to herself, which I never I did not see on the first watch, but on this rewatch, I was like, you should have left that alone, sweetheart. We need to do the Bechtel test with this movie. And I want to talk about the romance that you loved so much. Like, let's like dig into it a little bit. And finally, I do want to talk about the magical realism that I named and those visual metaphors, because I think that's really interesting and like a cool tool for storytelling. It doesn't, it wouldn't work for every film, but I think it's a really interesting like storytelling device that I'd like to just spend some time talking about. So that's where I want to go. We'll see if I get to all of it. But quickly, I or as quickly as I can, I'm not gonna do a synopsis like chronologically, because I don't think I could, but I'm gonna remind you of the characters. So Amelie Poulain, I think is her last name. I get to correct your press my pronunciation if necessary. Yeah. So Amelie Poulain is the protagonist of this film, the titular character. She is, we see her kind of grow up with a narration over top. And she it's has some of that magical realism and interesting kind of quirky moments as she's growing up. We learn that like her dad doesn't touch her at all, except for a monthly physical. He's a doctor. And so her heart rate speeds because she's excited to have her father touch her at all for any kind of infection. And so he thinks she has a heart problem because her heart rate is always elevated when he checks it every month. Her mom is very, I don't know the word. She's also standoffish. You know, we learn that her favorite thing is both of them. Her favorite thing is to empty out her purse, vacuum it out, and then put everything back. Her dad's favorite thing is to empty out his toolbox, vacuum it out, and put everything back in. And then we her why how could we possibly think that Amelie might be on the spectrum? Where might that have come from? Right. Well, that's her parents. So and her mother dies when a tourist is trying to commit suicide by jumping off of Notre Dame and lands on Amelie's mom, which is sort of a ridiculous way to go. So then it's just her and her dad. Anyway, most of the movie takes place now. She's an adult. She's we figure she's in her early 20s, she's moved to Paris. She is a waitress. So the people around her, this sort of inciting incident of the film, actually, this inciting incident is she's doing her nightly routine, and the news is on, and she hears the news of Lady Diana's passing, Lady D. And she drops the lid of the whatever cream or whatever that she's using, which is spherical, and it rolls on the bathroom and hits a tile that is loose and comes out, and there's like a hollowed out space. And she puts her hand in there and she pulls out this little tin box and opens it up, and it's got like the treasures that like maybe an eight or nine-year-old boy would have saved. There's like a photo of uh an athlete, there's a little bicycle toy, marbles. So it's clearly like a young boy's treasure. And so she decides to maybe try and return this to the man who left it when he was a boy in this apartment. So there's a whole series where she's trying to find him. His name is Julian Bretodo. And like first she thinks it's Bredotto, like with the D's and the T's switched, and she meets a bunch of people who are not in. So she finds the guy. She puts the tin in a telephone booth and then calls the phone booth as he's walking by. So he steps in, answers, she hangs up before she talks, and then he sees the tin. He starts crying and ends up in this bar where she also is. And he overhears him say that he had lost touch with his daughter and he heard she had a son, and maybe it's time for him to get back in touch. So her helping, her returning this thing, like ends up reuniting this man with his family. Okay, great. So this starts her, this idea that she's gonna help people, everyone. It's gonna, and she has these beautiful fantasies where she's watching TV and the TV is like about her. And so she has these fantasies of just being this like guardian angel sort of thing, like helping people around her. She has a neighbor in the building that she's in has like a courtyard. So she has a neighbor across the courtyard who they call the glass man because his bones are very brittle. So he doesn't go out. All of his furniture has these weird padding around it. He's often wearing bandages on his hands and he's painting and he's painting one of Renoir's paintings over and over again. He has a name, I don't remember it, but they call him the glass man. So she ends up interacting with him. He's the one who tells her the name was wrong with the D's and T's. And they start sort of hanging out a little bit. There's also the characters we meet at the sort of fruit and vegetable stand near her house. It's like a little grocery store with fruit and vegetables outside. There are two people who work there. There's the boss, who is um Monsieur Collignon, and then a young man who has only one arm and seems to be slightly intellectually developmentally delayed as well. Just slightly. His name is Julian. And M. Colognon is really mean to Julian, like really mean in front of customers. We also, there is also a blind man who we see who busks in the, I don't know, the metro stations. He holds a record player and like a cup, and he's playing this old music. So we see and we see him around a couple of times. In her restaurant, the two windmills, where she waitresses, we meet the other characters there. So there's the owner, Suzanne. There's Georgette, who has a tobacco stand, like a cigarette stand. Joseph is a regular. He is kind of crazy. And he's the one who likes to pop bubble wrap. He does. Yeah. And he is Gina's ex-boyfriend. And now he's basically stalking her. Gina is another waitress at the restaurant. We learn, too, that she has a friend who is a stewardess, and Amelie watches the stewardess's cat while she's away. And then we meet Nino. We first meet him, we don't know his name yet. He's like using a ruler or something to get trash out from under a photo booth. And he and Amelie sort of lock eyes, and there's clearly like some sort of spark. And we see him throughout the movie, he collects the discarded photos from these photo booths and he puts them into a scrapbook, which drops off of the sort of saddlebag on his motorized bicycle when he's chasing someone. She picks it up and is like really intrigued by this book. They end up having a conversation back and forth with like photos from the photo booth where she took a bunch of pictures in costume and said, Do you want to meet me? which she's stuck in the description, which she returns to him. And then he puts up stuff all over like the photo booths in the Metro stations that says where and when. Say it. Where and when. So they are destined to be together because they're both so friggin' quir quirky. And they do end up together, but she like creates these complicated treasure hunts for him to try and meet them. Finally, he finds out where she lives from Gina, the one of the other waitresses, who says, I'm worried for Amelie because I like you and I have terrible taste in them. And she's trying to like run away again, but the glassman and Amelie kind of spy on each other with binoculars and like a spy glass. And he has put a VHS in her room and she watches it and he says, if you don't act, you're gonna end up like me. Your bones are not made of glass. You need to go get him. She opens the door, he's waiting there, and they have this quirky connection. And then the final minutes of the movie is them on his motorized bike, like uh having a great time. Some of the things we learn about Amelie through the narration is that she doesn't really, she tried romance and she didn't really like it. She was the results were a letdown, and we see her just not getting it while having sex. And so now she takes pl pleasure in simple things, including, as your husband remembered, she like looks around and she'll stick her hand down in like the big barrel of lentils or whatever, or bean, like dried beans for the sensory thing. She loves skipping stones. So throughout the movie, we see her picking up flat stones at different places. She likes to imagine how many couples are having orgasm right now. And we see like the film shows us a whole bunch of couples, and then she turns and she looks directly at the camera and says, 15. No, it's 15.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

I thought it was eight.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Yeah. I guess Paris is a big city. There's a lot of actually fourth wall breaking where she talks to us directly, like not as much as say flea bag, but she definitely is aware of us as the viewer, which is kind of cool. And there are moments of magical realism where, for instance, she gives Nino a note on the back of a like four quadrant photo from the photo booth with of a dude with a mustache, and the dude talks to her, talks, excuse me, talks to Nino because he has it taped up. So the photos are talking to him, and each of the four like has his own voice. There are moments, there's one moment where she thinks that he has stood her up and she sort of turns into water and like falls on the ground. Yeah. Her, I already told you, like the TV is like about Amelie Pulan. It's like a newsreel or something that clearly is part of her imagination. Above her bed, she has a painting of a dog in like a cone and a goose. And they sort of talk to each other at one point. So there are a lot of moments of this magical realism within this play, within this movie. She interferes or helps in like a lot of people's lives. So after the initial returning the treasure to the man 50 years later, or I guess 30 years later. So she makes Joseph and Georgette, so the obsessed ex-boyfriend and the she's a hypochondriac working at the cigarette stand, think that they like one another and they end up getting together. But then he turns, he does the same thing to Georgette that he was doing to Gina. She sees the blind man at a curb at one point, and he's like using his cane. She grabs him by the arm and walks him to the metro and describes everything around them. And it is a delightful scene. And the film makes us know that he liked what just happened. They sort of show like a kind of golden glow around him. She also, there's she sees a news story about a mailbag that is found from a plane crash, like from the 60s. This is in 2001, and there's all this mail. And she has a neighbor who still has her husband's portrait up, even though the man left her for his secretary and moved to Peru or something. And she has she got a letter that her husband had died in a car crash in South America with when he left her for this woman. But she's sorry. Oh, okay. Wait, the letter is real? Well, wait, there was a there was in fact a plane crash with a mailbag. Okay. Amelie sees a news story about. Okay. That gives her the idea because the woman with the dead husband who had left her kept all of his love letters, kept all of his love letters and reads them, one of them to Amelie. She's still obsessed with this man. So Amelie somehow has ends up with keys. Oh no, the woman leaves her door partially ajar. So Amelie like goes in and takes all the letters, reads them all, and then photocopies them and like cuts it all up to make a new letter, which she like dies with T- and delivers it with a cover letter that says, This was found in this mailbag from a plane crash in 68 with apologies for the very long delay. And it basically says, I made a huge mistake and I'm coming back. So she sort of redeems the Oh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

So the husband has been dead. Oh, yeah. The husband's dead.

Helping Versus Meddling

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Okay, okay. And has been dead. Gotcha. Yeah. So she sort of Amelie's fake letter from the husband, which is believable because it's his handwriting and she had cut up the thing. Mm-hmm. Sort of redeems him for this woman. So that's one of the ways she meddles. And the blind man to the metro is one of the ways she meddles. The Joseph and G and Georgette. She also Collignon is so mean to Julian, and she likes Julian because he's sort of simple and he loves the vegetables and whatever. Yeah, it's really sweet. So she basically likes gaslights almost literally the Colignon. She ends up in his apartment. She has a key to his apartment because he left his keys in the lock. And she tries to give them back and he's so mean. She's like, never mind. So she goes in and like just looks around, but then she replaces his slippers with exactly the same slipper, but it's like a size too small. And she like changes the bulb so they're not in in his light bulb, so they're not as bright. She changes his alarm, like on his clock, to wake him up at four. She switches the two the foot cream and the toothpaste because they look very similar. She changes the, he has like one of those phones with the speed dial. And she changes the speed dial for his mother to like a psychiatric hospital. So we see this guy like go through all these things and like really think he's crazy. And so she so that's another way that she meddles. Her dad, she meddles with her dad. He like doesn't want, she says, You're retired. Why don't you travel? And he's like, you know, your mom and I always wanted to travel and we couldn't because of your heart. And he's just sort of stuck. And he's like playing in his garden and he puts a garden gnome on the top of this shrine for his wife's ashes. And so she chisels out the gnome from the shrine, gives it to the stewardess friend, who then sends Polaroids of the gnome from like famous places around the world, like Moscow and New York and Beijing. And then she brings it back and Amelie puts it back where it belonged. And that works. Dad ends up traveling. There's probably another way that she interferes, but that's what I remember. So all of these things are happening while the kind of like extended and like complicated treasure hunt romance is coming together. And and that's sort of the movie, like in buckets as opposed to a thread. So I would like to actually start with helping versus meddling. And then get to the other things because I think that there are things. So we know that when she's like gaslighting collinal, that's not helping, really. Like it in some ways it feels like justice because we watch the man be absolutely horrendous to Julian.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

But also to someone who's not a not able to stand up for himself, really.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Yeah. And the glass man, like, sort of is coaching Julian too, like to be like instead of calling him Monsieur Colignon, like calling him like Colignon down the John, and it like Rhymes in French and like other things, rhyming things about Colinol. But Julian gets on the glass man's nerves too. Like at one point he's like, enough already, you know? And Julian gets upset and leaves. So, but the it's funny, but also like kind of cruel the way that she like gets back at him. And is it really gonna change his behavior? You know, like is it really gonna make Julian's life any better?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yeah. Shit runs downhill.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

So yeah. Yeah. So like on Rewatch, I was like, yeah, this is still really funny, but also like maybe not helping.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Maybe she could have helped Julian get a different job.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

A different job. Yeah. And the scene with the blind man, actually on Rewatch, really bothered me because she does not ask him where he's going. She assumes where he's going and then she just kind of bulldozes in there and she's entertaining him along the way. But like there was no consent, and there was no, it was like it was, it felt saviorist.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Yeah, saviorist and ableist in that. And it's very quick, you know, it's just one scene that's maybe a minute and a half, two minutes. But on rewatch, I was like, that's meddling, friend. Like, like you did not talk to the man about what he needed. Like maybe he was standing there listening and like happy to be like maybe he was where he wanted to be. Yeah. And you just, without asking, took him someplace else. And that on rewatch, I was like, I feel like we need to talk about consent here.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah. When I was in in Paris, there's something it's still it sticks in my head. There's a wheelchair user. We were crossing the street. And just like any major city, there's there's the cutouts for wheelchair users, but there's also a lip. And this man, he tumbled out of his chair. Oh no. And he was embarrassed. And like he was assuring, like, like the entire crowd was like there trying to help him up. And it stuck in my head, like exactly what he said, Ah, ça arrive de temps en temps, which it happened sometimes. And like, I don't know if I knew that phrase before he said it, but I knew exactly like that phrase is now in my head. And I just remember like wanting to give him that his dignity, and like, and it felt like all the commuters that morning, all of us were just like, yes, it happens sometimes, and we're here to, and it happens sometimes that's that we all need a moment of help because like city planners don't realize that lip is treacherous or they they don't maintain it or whatever. And I don't know, it just it was a like this very human moment. That moment in Amelie, like she's trying to help, but she's not giving him the human moment. Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

She's helping based on what she thinks he wants and needs rather than what he has expressed he wants and needs.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah. So like we didn't rush to help until the man had fallen out of his chair. Mm-hmm.

Consent And The Blind Man Scene

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Yeah. I think that's sort of what she thinks they want and need. That's also true of Joseph and Gina, who she does get together. Like her meddling gets You mean Georgette. You're right, Georgette. Thank you, Joseph and Georgette. She does get them together. And like they're happy, both of them, for a moment. But then it turns into something really ugly because he's not healthy. Yeah. And so again, she meddled and gave each of them what she thought they wanted and needed, but not what they expressed that they wanted and needed. So each of her meddling, each of her interventions actually work, right? Like with Joseph and and Georgette, with the glass man, like all with her dad to get him to travel. But like, is it for the better? Like, I'm not sure for each of them it is. Some of them it is. So I think that was a really interesting, like, nuance that I did not see when I was watching it in the early 2000s that I think is worth sort of naming about this. Like it's sort of an immature, which is appropriate for Amelie. She's very young and was very sheltered. Early 20s, yeah. And had a very sheltered life as a young person. So it makes sense and also it goes without comment. So that was something that I just wanted to kind of name about this movie. Okay. So let's talk about the possibility of Amelie being on the spectrum. So the person that I saw, and this I didn't spend a lot of time reading this. I just saw like kind of the headlines was like her sensory things, like the hand in the rice, and the fact that she actually sort of avoids human interaction and is uncomfortable. Like she has to work up to it with Nino and with the others as well. That this person sort of thought maybe she was on the spectrum. I think it's an interesting question and one that, like, in some ways, I don't know if it is this accurate. I was gonna say I don't know if it matters. I don't know if that's accurate, though. To have a character who is so delightful and beloved on the spectrum is in some ways great for sort of acceptance and representation, etc. But the fact that she's not named that way, is it actually doing that? So I think it's like a both and like she's not named as being on the spectrum. Like there, this is like after the fact commentary, wondering, speculating. So on the one hand, the sort of quirks are seen as delightful and a good thing, which I think helps for folks who are not literary characters who may be on the spectrum and have what neurotypical folks think of as quirks, that we can think of them as delightful and not as something to be fixed or changed. But that she's not named that way, is it actually representation? I don't know. This is like an open question for me.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

It's also they're delightful and quirks, and she's played by the absolutely adorable Audrey Tattoo. Would they be delightful and quirks if she were played by someone who wasn't as photogenic?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting question. Yeah. So I don't I don't have an answer to that, but I thought it was an interesting sort of thought exercise. Like, is this character potentially on the spectrum? And if so, what then are the implications for its influence? So that was just like a I don't have anywhere else to go with that, but like kind of grappling with those questions as I've been thinking about the movie since after rewatch is just something sort of interesting. I mean, the movie like cat it tackles ableism in some ways because Julian is has only one arm, and we are meant to know that he is developmentally delayed or has intellectual disabilities. And we're meant to really like care about Julian and think badly of those who abuse him because of his disabilities. So in that way, it's like sort of tackling ableism. But then we also have that saviorist ableist moment of the walking the blind man to the metro, which who knows if he even wanted to go to the metro. So anyway, you were gonna say something.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Well, and that's you were maybe gonna talk about French versus American perception. The other aspect of this is like the kind of quirkiness is also I see as kind of French. Like, because Nino's quirkiness, like I think if you plopped them in New York, they would be a lot odder interesting than they are in France, because I think there is a level of expected quirkiness, like or embrace of quirkiness. And so, like, the culture rewards lack of conformity. Yes. I think the culture is charmed by being unexpected like unexpected in a quirky kind of kind of way. So, and I it's hard for me to articulate it because it's not something I can quite put my finger on. It's a slippery thing. It's a slippery cultural thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

I hear you though. And thinking about this movie, I think that jibes because each of the characters we meet has some sort of like unexpectedness, right? Like the glass man, he's painting this renoir painting, and we learn that he has painted it every year for 20 years. So he has this copy of this renoir over and over and over again because he's trying to get it right. So he's an artist, but like that's quirky. And like the woman whose husband is dead after he left her for his secretary, like her obsession with him, like feels kind of quirky. I mean, it's it's a magical realism movie. And some of the these characters feel that way because they have sort of a singular defining characteristic. I mean, Georgette, who the tobacconist, yeah. Tobacconist, thank you, who and her hypochondria, like that also feels quirky. Like she even at one point, Joseph says, You're gorgeous when you blush. And he she says, It's my dyspepsia. Except they say it in French.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Yeah, yeah. Um so and that's I'm just thinking of French actors who have gotten have become American actors or have gotten into American movies. So I'm thinking, I cannot think of his name, but the guy who's in the professional. Yeah. And Depardu. Yeah, Girard Depardu and Marion Cotillard, like they do bring like a kind of slant-wise quirkiness to their work. Yeah, so that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

So so the question of like in America, we would be like, well, that person's weird, but in France they're like, yeah, quirk, cool.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah. It's more like instead of what's your astrological sign, it's like, what's your quirk, baby? So and family tends to be just more qu quirkier than usual.

Is Amelie On The Spectrum

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And we are meant to believe it's sort of because her imagination is so vivid, powerful, and vivid in part because of her childhood. Yes. Like we are meant to see that it's because of her childhood. She was forced to like play alone. And so she created these playmates in her mind. Mm-hmm. So, well, let's stay with the French versus American and talk about that a little bit. I read I skimmed. I'm gonna be honest. I skimmed this article by a French person. They were writing in English, and they had a bone to pick with this movie. They said that like they I don't see it, I don't understand, but they were talking about how it sort of felt almost like nationalistic in the ways that it portrayed France. Like it had all these stereotypical points of like Montmartre and Notre-Dame and like some of the things that like are quintessentially French that this movie just sort of celebrated and leaned into in a way that felt kind of nationalistic and xenophobic to this writer, which I didn't get. But I'm not French. And so I think there's something, some interesting thought experiments and like threads to pull in the abstract about this question of like something that is made by French people for French people, or by a culture for that people of that culture when another culture consumes it in the different context. Like there's something really interesting to me about what gets lost in translation and but what is also found in translation. Right. Like there's something really, really interesting to me. And I don't, I'm speaking in draft. I don't have like a final insight to share here. But reading that let me just finish this thought. Reading that essay and being like, oh wow, I didn't see that at all, like created this question for me.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

So I have that experience in reverse from when I was a I was studying abroad in France. I was there from January to June 2000. And the movie Three Kings came out then. Do you I don't know if you ever saw it? It was George Clooney. I remember that when it came out, but I have not seen it. So it is a like comedy action film that was very critical of our war in Iraq. So I went to see it, and then the host mother I was living with, who was was French, she spoke, she was trilingual, English, French, and Russian, which is a very impressive woman. And she went to see it separately, and then we were talking about it later. And I loved the film. I thought it was just very, very well done. And she came home and she said, That is the silliest thing I've ever seen. I realized what was lost in translation. Now, one of the scenes that was so important to me, there's a point where the American soldiers are captured and they're being tortured by an Iraqi who has a CD, a CD in a jewel case, and he like forces it in the soldier's mouth and is pouring oil down his throat. It was like great visual metaphor. And part of the reason why I liked the movie is because it felt like it was quintessentially American, because the Americans, they break off from what their mission is and to do something based on greed. Like they are going to, they think there's this cache of gold, they're gonna go steal it because they're greedy Americans, because that's what we are. But in the midst of this, they discover something horrible that is happening that is targeting women and children. And so they abandon the gold to rescue these women and children because there's no one else who can do that for them. And so they end up like sacrificing this greedy dream to help people. And the moral of the story was basically like Americans are venal and greedy, but when the chips fall down, we do what's right. And I want to believe that about us. And did not connect with my host mother at all because she didn't grow up in America. Very long story to say. Yeah, I can imagine, like, if you're watching Amelie and you have like consistently gotten like French flag, nationalism, xenophobia that is like clear to you, like that dog whistles are so loud you can't possibly hear anything else. Someone from another country comes and is just like, what are you talking about?

French Versus American Readings

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Yeah, that's and that's basically what this commentator was saying. In fact, referred, they said there were so many cliches, which they must be French cliches because I didn't see them. So that was really interesting for me. And just thinking about the way that that happens is an interesting, I think, thought exercise. Yeah. So let's talk about the romance. It's delightful. And also, I have some questions.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

They don't actually like meet or spend any time together, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Right. Like in the fine when they finally do meet face to face, he starts to talk. She puts her finger on his lips to like stop him. She gives him three kisses, one kind of on the side of his mouth, one on the other side of on his neck, and then one like kind of on his eyelid. And then she points to her own mouth and he does the same three kisses. And then from outside, we see like the glass man and Julian are in his apartment across the courtyard and they're watching, and we see in silhouette that they're kissing. And then later we see they're both naked in bed, and he's resting his head on her chest, and she's kind of rubbing his hair. And then the final minutes, as I said, they're on the motorbike and clearly having a good time. She's behind, and like there are moments where she rests her head on his shoulder and she kisses his shoulder, and she's smiling, and they're like pointing at things, and they're just they're just having a great time. And it was delightful. I loved it. And when I step back from sort of the delightful of like Audra Tattoo, who is, as you say, just like she's like a cartoon princess come to life with those huge eyes. She's just so gorgeous and delightful, like gorgeous, but not in a almost not in a male gay, sexy way, just in a like this delightful energy. And the man who plays Nino, too, is like his look is quirky and I don't like comforting somehow. Like he does not, like, I implicitly trust that he's not gonna hurt her on purpose. I mean, nobody, you know, he but he's just I just trust that he's like gonna follow her lead and all those things. So, and like the way they get together with the sort of quirky back and forth that they like each other's weirdness feels like it's pointing to an underlying assumption that every pot has a lid and like he's like the one, and that's how we know because they have these like echoing weirdnesses. Complimentary quirks, yeah. Yeah, that I don't know, I don't take issue with complimentary quirks finding one another and enjoying one another. That I don't take issue with that. That's great. But sort of the implication because of the magical realism that there's like a one, I do take issue with. And I feel like the film subtly reifies that idea that these two people have to find each other. They were made to be together, that they're, you know, that this is inevitable. And that feels icky. Well, it feels like a dangerous idea that like younger Tracy had in her head and like has rejected, but it's still like like one of those things that, like, yeah, I've rejected that, but where's my one? Like so that piece, like, I just wanted to name that as something that I definitely did not see or be able to name in 2001. And it was getting like it was reifying the programming. It was like ex like underlining the programming.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Yeah, yeah. Well, and the fact that they don't actually have a conversation with each other, really.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

I mean, they have an extended conversation through their actions. Yeah. But yeah, there's no actual like verbal communication that we see on screen ever, actually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Yeah. Which I mean, I guess the I don't know. I like I'm just thinking this isn't what I would this isn't what I would want for my kids.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

Yeah. And it's not what I would want for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

It's an interesting, it's a little bit troubling, but also like it is so ingrained in sort of Western culture, because this isn't American even, like, this is European, but Western culture and also like the romance genre. It's like so ingrained in that that like I'm not mad at these movie makers. Like they're tapping into a thing that is independent of this film. Yeah. Well, and it resonates. I mean, every like I loved it in 2001.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

I loved that every pot has a lid in 2001. It's even, well, I'm also thinking like there are so many assumptions baked in. Even the like when she's like, she's imagining how many couples are having orgasms right now, they're all straight, aren't they? Yes. Not in Paris. At no point in Paris' history ever has that been true. Also, not in Paris, has it ever been true that at any one time has it just been couples? Yeah, that's funny. I mean, and like we can say that that because it's her imagination, that's and she was sheltered. Sure. That's a good point. I I did not think of that.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

That's a very good point.

SPEAKER_03 43:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

All right. But that's also part of what's like built into this story. And I guess part of like it's not what the not the criticism that that author was was talking about that you you mentioned, where it's like very nationalistic, but it's part of it, is like it is a very sanitized version of what Paris is. Yeah.

The Romance And Soulmate Myth

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Yeah. All right. The last thing that was on my list, and then we need to wrap up, is actually Bechtel, which usually is a quick thing for us, but I want to spend a little bit more time on it. You would think that this film would pass Bechtel with flying colors, because there are so many named female characters. But pretty much they're all talking about men. So, like even she goes to a um, there's a newspaper stand. And she speaks to the woman there. And they do talk briefly about like a news item, but mostly they're talking about Joseph and Gina. I'm sorry, Joseph, Gina, and Joseph and Georgette. She talks to the neighbor with the dead husband about the dead husband. She talks to, I suppose she does talk to the stewardess who has a name about the gnome. Does the gnome count as a man? I guess not. So I suppose it does pass Bechtel. But then there are all these other, there's a lot of conversations that happen between Amelie and another named female character that are about a man. Yeah. Which is without Alice and Bechtel's test, like I I never would have noticed that. So once again, I have to thank her for naming this. But it's it's a really interesting sort of when you're talking about what's baked in to this movie that we kind of don't see because of the way that it's baked in, that kind of centering of men, even though it's a film about a woman, it still in many ways centers men, which is an interesting thing to note. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

Does in the childhood sequence, when does she talk to her mother?

SPEAKER_01 45:44

No, they that it's all narration. It's a lot of narration. So there's very little actually in like talking dialogue in that section. Yeah. The mom we see like freaks out because the fish, blubber, her only friend, it's a goldfish, is suicidal and keeps jumping out of the fishbowl. And Amelie screams when the fish is, and then mom gets very like she's neurotic and she gets very upset about the screaming. And so eventually she says enough and they return Blubber to the wild. So they dump him into like the nearby stream, including the fishbowl, but they don't actually talk. We just hear narration from a male narrator, and then we see that happen. So yeah, no. Okay. So we are running short on time. So I'm gonna see if I can reflect back some of the things that we talked about, Amelie. So I mean, this film is delightful and it's gorgeous. Like, not just Audrey Tattoo, gorgeous. Like it's just a gorgeous cinematography is amazing. It really is. And the magical realism moments are so well done that it you just accept it that this photograph is moving or that the paintings are talking or whatever. It's really still a delightful watch. We talked a bit about helping versus meddling. And of all the people that Amelie helps, some of them she genuinely helps. Like the very first man, Bretot, Julian Bretodot, she does help him by returning this box to him. She does help her dad kind of get over his fear and travel, which is what he wants to do. But some of the other people that she helps, like, I don't know if she actually helped the blind man that she walked from one spot to another. I don't know if that's what he wanted. I don't know that her meddling with Georgette and Joseph was a help. Like, I think Georgette's worse off now that she has this ex-boyfriend. Yeah. She certainly didn't help Monsieur Colignon. She wasn't trying to, but I'm not even sure she helped Julian by kind of torturing Colignon. So that's an interesting question that I did not see on first watch at all. Like it was not, I just was enjoying the machinations and the skin in the schemas. We talked about whether or not Amelie might be on the spectrum and whether or not, like what diff what implications that would have if in fact this character is for kind of representation and for folks in the world who are on the spectrum and their greater acceptance or not. And that actually led to our talk about cultural differences, about the way that sort of outside the norm, outside the expected path is received in France versus received here in the US, where it seems that perhaps like quirkiness or not like weirdness or being like not expected, not normal, is accepted and celebrated in France more so than it is here. Even if you don't look like Aju Tattoo. Or Nina. That or Nino K I can't remember, except for the Q. And then that led to additional conversations about sort of the cultural differences and taking a piece of media that was created by people of a culture for people of that culture and watching it in a different culture, and sort of the experience of me watching Amelie and not seeing French nationalism at all, and the experience of your host mother watching Three Kings and like not getting why this is a feel-good movie because she doesn't have those fears and hopes about who Americans really are. We talked about the romance and how it like pushes all the right buttons, but are those buttons actually healthy for us? And lastly, I brought the Bechtel test in and noted that though it does pass Bechtel, a lot of the conversations don't. And that just sort of is symptomatic of some of the patriarchal, heteronormative assumptions that are baked into this film that you don't see until you start really examining it, in part because, well, we don't see them because of our own privileges in many ways, that we don't have to see it. It's not a threat or it's not a danger to us that the heteronormativity and the and the patriarchy, well, the patriarchy actually is a threat to us, but we're so accustomed to it that that's why we don't see it. I think that's everything that we talked about. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

Yeah. The only thing is just the we might be able to assume that some of this comes from how sheltered Amelie is.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

The film definitely suggests that.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

Yeah, but the film doesn't give us any indication that like this isn't what Paris is like. Right. Or that like her helping is maybe not helping.

Bechdel Test And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_01 50:52

It doesn't there's no critique at all of her in some ways immature. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's still well worth watching. I have to tell you, like, I had forgotten that it's in French with subtitles because the story is just so I know it's ridiculous, but like the story is so powerful in my mind that like I just forgot that it's in French with subtitles because I I just love it so much. So that was really interesting, also for me at on Rio Ash. I was like, all right, all right, it's in French, which is sort of silly.

SPEAKER_00 51:23

So, anyway, what are you bringing me next week? Next week, I am going to bring you my deep thoughts on uh Madonna's material girl music video.

Support The Show And Closing

SPEAKER_01 51:32

Of course, which we are gonna do in front of a live virtual studio audience. Listeners, if you would be interested in that, it is a benefit of patronage over on our Patreon at our two highest tiers. So check out our Patreon if that sounds like a thing you would like to do and be a member of our live virtual studio audience. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. Well, I will look forward to that, Em. Yeah, I'll see you then. This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon. There's a link in the show notes. Or leave a positive review so others can find us. And of course, share the show with your people. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin McLeod from Incompotech.com. Find full music credits in the show notes. Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's episode. Until next time, remember, pop culture is still culture. And shouldn't you know what's in your head?