Art imitates art. I’ve really enjoyed that France and Belgium have chosen to learn from Japanese animators, and take that knowledge to their film industry making their own stuff. I really loved the weirdo Mars Express, and now we get to hang with a littler weirdo, Amelie in this one. That might be an insult to some, but when you wear your strange proudly like the Character of Rain does, it’s really the highest praise I could give the film.
Amelie (Loise Charptentier) believes she is a god. I mean, don’t all 2-3 year olds? When she finally starts to pay attention, she learns her mom (Laetitia Coryn) and dad (Marc Arnaud) are from Belgium, but don’t live in Belgium now. Amelie is actually in Japan, with a Japanese nanny Nishio (Victoria Grosbois) and landlord Kashima (Yumi Fujimori). Despite being a god, Amelie doesn’t know what that means, but is curious and eager to learn and experience everything to figure it out.
That feeling of pure discovery is what directors Mailys Vallade and Liane Cho Han really want you to feel as Amelie grows up. The drawing here is beautiful, with vivacious color schemes everywhere. Trips to the pond in the backyard feel pulled straight from someone’s memory; you can smell those flowers and taste the nostalgia. Eye color is a big deal here, really popping with Amelie’s green eyes that pierce directly into your soul. Each new place, or time, feels wonderfully realized, helping set the table for the story we’re about to be served, always making sure to end with a figurative warm hug, either to console or to show appreciation for what we’ve just not only seen, but felt right in the heart.
I would like Amelie’s mom to become the South African ambassador, and meet Lexi Venter’s Bobo. This is apparently the year of kids and parents from 2 different worlds. Yes Amelie’s parents are Belgian, and she gets to experience great parts of that life, especially when her grandmother Claude (Cathy Cerda) arrives. But both parents work and Amelie’s siblings Juliette (Haylee Issembourg) and Andre (Isaac Schoumsky) are in school. That means Amelie’s day to day life is filtered through Nishio (Victoria Grosbois), raising the little god. Whatever Belgian foundation Amelie was on gets untethered slowly, through beautiful lessons Nishio teaches her sponge about monsters, names, life, and death. There are many profound moments in Little Amelie, but the most profound one happens almost innocuously, when Amelie learns what an ambassador does and more importantly, for what amount of time. At that young of an age, each new piece of information helps build and rebuild the sense of self through that cultural push and pull, and Little Amelie is best when Vallade and Cho Han really immerse you in Amelie’s point of view, learning and growing with each new experience, happy or sad.
I hope filmmaking lessons go both ways. After learning how to animate from the Japanese, I hope Makoto Shinkai makes a Julia Ducournau like anime pop up in Japan. Can you imagine the Japanese version of Raw? Red star crossed lovers? Now that’s a title.