The Maybe Movies team ('Long Way North') relies on a distinctive, minimalist aesthetic to depict writer Amélie Northomb's formative years in Kobe.
Amélie Nothomb, the daughter of a Belgian diplomat with Japanese leanings, has published several books about her upbringing in Asia, including one in which she bravely channels her inner child. In "Métaphysique des tubes" (or "The Character of Rain" in English), Nothomb spends a lot of time convinced she is God. "In the beginning" opens the memoir, clearly evoking the Holy Book. It's a touch that many loved in its print version, but proves difficult to replicate in the otherwise delightful animated adaptation that premiered at Cannes, delighted Annecy, and is now coming to the United States thanks to Gkids.
Directors: Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han Jin Kuang
Writers: Amélie Nothomb, Liane-Cho Han Jin Kuang, Aude Py
Stars: Loïse Charpentier, Victoria Grobois, Yumi Fujimori
According to Nothomb, in those early years, she assumed the universe revolved around her, which makes "Little Amélie" (as the amusing cartoon calls its big-eyed, big-headed main character) a poetic look at the process by which a self-centered European girl, born in a foreign country, came to understand her place in society. Some of young Amélie's ideas are quite bizarre, like when she compares herself to a tube: food goes in one end and out the other. Gross, but easier to accept than all that God stuff.
While much of the book was devoted to articulating the mental state of a two-year-old, the film takes a more visual approach, depicting the world through Amélie's eyes. And what captivating eyes they are: hypnotic yellow-green orbs, surrounded by emerald! For those who enjoy Belgian surrealist reinterpretations of children's origins, more elegant models can be found in Jaco Van Dormael's "Toto, the Hero" (the film whose colorful style inspired that other "Amélie") or in "My Life in Pink," a largely forgotten queer indie film that pioneered the theme of trans identity.
In short, "Little Amélie" isn't unique in offering an alternative, fanciful perspective on birds, bees, storks, and so on, though its model can be a little difficult to grasp. Is she a deity or a tube? Does she possess exceptional powers or simply presumptuous self-importance? We were all two years old once, but Amélie's worldview is neither intuitive nor universal. Ultimately, it's through Nothomb's unique details that the film is most engaging: being a Westerner in Japan, circa 1970, torn between two cultures, connecting with a local woman without being aware of the still-delicate post-war history.
Filmmakers Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, who adapted the book with Aude Py and Eddine Noël, condense young Amélie's God complex into a brief prologue, focusing most of the film's 78 minutes on her formative memories. Voiced by Loïse Charpentier, Amélie is unsure of what to make of her own family, especially her abusive older brother, André (Isaac Schoumsky), until her grandmother visits from Belgium.
The kindly matriarch wins Amélie over by giving her white chocolate, and thus a first human connection is established. Soon after, Amélie develops a fondness for Nishio-san (Victoria Grobois), the young Japanese woman who works as her housekeeper, forging a bond that serves as the central focus of the film. As Amélie gradually learns to understand the world—parting the sea to examine all the creatures that inhabit it and building paper lanterns with Nishio for the Obon Festival of the Dead—the film works its magic.
In these scenes, the audience fully identifies with the precocious little girl, whose first word is neither "mama" nor "dada" but "aspirateur" (French for "vacuum cleaner"). Amélie's parents are understandably impressed when she begins to express herself in full sentences, taking revenge on her brother André by saying everyone's name except her own. It all seems a bit corny, until things get serious and Amélie experiences not one, but two near-death experiences: the way this "god" finally comes to appreciate her own mortality, but also convenient opportunities for her to be rescued by characters she previously disliked (different from the saviors described in the book).
Co-directors Vallade and Han's minimalist visual style elegantly matches the young character's naiveté, forgoing the hand-drawn outlines we've come to expect from classic anime and cartoons. Instead, we see fuzzy, slightly pixelated edges that look softer on smaller screens. Human faces are rendered with just four colors, concentrating our attention on Amélie's intense lime-green eyes, while the simply designed backgrounds recall the work of artistic collaborator.
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