Hello! So, Lisa and I were thinking about doing a month of our favorites – lists of favorite movies, books, etc, whatever we love – and then also watching and reviewing some of our favorite movies. Then, I had to take an unexpected break from blogging and now things are all a little up in the air! However, I am going to post a linky at the top and if anyone wants to participate in posting about their favorite anything, feel free to link up with us!

I started with watching one of my all time favorite movies, Amelie, starring Audrey Tautou.

Miramax summarizes this movie as:

A painfully shy waitress working at a tiny Paris cafe, Amelie makes a surprising discovery and sees her life drastically changed for the better. From then on, Amelie dedicates herself to helping others find happiness in the most delightfully unexpected ways. But will she have the courage to do for herself what she has done for others?

Amelie is a shy, introverted, daydreamer. Her parents were cold, unapproachable, and her imagination sustained her then, and it sustains her into her adulthood. She keeps to herself, the pretty girl from the fourth floor, when one day, upon hearing of the death of Lady Diana, she makes a discovery in her bathroom. Behind a tile, she finds a small tin filled with a young boy’s treasures. She resolves to herself that she will find the person it used to belong to, now forty years later, and if he is happy, then she will continue to do things to make others happy.

She is a bit of an imp, and does not go about her tasks straightforward. Instead, there is always a “strategem” involved, a plan, some of them very clever. As she goes about her new mission, her world starts to expand, and she even falls in love.. and not even that goes as you may expect. This is no formulaic, run of the mill, type romance.

Amelie is a bit of a mischief, an imp, despite her shy nature. It is one of the things I love about her character; she is not a typical “shy” movie character in all ways. She is unexpected.

And she has great style, I love all of her outfits. Just had to throw that in there.

This movie cinematically is beautiful. The colors are so saturated and rich, the music is perfect. And some of the scenes are so well thought out that they give me chills. There is one scene in particular near the end of the movie, where Amelie is baking in her kitchen, angry at herself, yet is daydreaming of a peaceful cozy scene, and there is a shift in the scene and well, you will have to see it. Or if you don’t want to watch the movie, you can see the scene here. Just know, there are huge spoilers- like huge, reveal the whole end of the movie spoilers!

Those beads.

This is one of those movies where when it ends, you just sigh, loudly and dramatically, one of those full body sighs, at how lovely it all was. Or, at least I do.

To say I love this movie would be an understatement. I used to play this soundtrack on repeat, as I cleaned or baked or wrote. One year I went as Amelie for Halloween. We are still inspired by this movie – after watching this movie on Saturday night, I mentioned to Billy on Sunday that roast chicken for dinner sounded delicious. There had been a roasted chicken in the movie, you see, and while it wasn’t important, not really, it kind of was. Well, my husband being my husband, made me a roasted chicken that night for dinner.

This is a movie for dreamers, and I can’t recommend it enough.