‘Amélie’ vs. ‘Harry Potter’: a feel-good comparison

They're plucky, resourceful and determined. They're innocent and wide-eyed. And let's face it they're also pretty darn cute.

For these reasons, and a myriad assortment of others, the titular protagonists of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and "Amélie" have seized the hearts and wallets of American moviegoers everywhere.

To inform those readers who have been living in a (very remote) cave for the past few weeks, "Harry Potter" is a big-budget, effects-filled fantasy following the exploits of a boy wizard-in-training, based on the bestselling novel by J.K. Rowling. Following in the immensely profitable footsteps of its literary source, the film broke the box-office record of the biggest opening weekend in history ($90.3 million in three days, beating "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" by nearly $20 million) upon its Nov. 16 release. It subsequently devoured the competition again for the five-day Thanksgiving weekend.

Although "Amélie," Jean-Pierre Jeunet's whimsical tale of a waitress-turned-good-samaritan, has not amassed nearly as large a sum, it has been performing especially well at the box office for a foreign film (it was made in France) since opening on Nov. 2. For the past two weeks, it has just barely missed a top-10 slot, and American distributor Miramax Films, the behemoth that pushed Italian film "Life is Beautiful" over the $50 million mark in 1998, will most likely ensure that it plows its way up the charts.

These two recent success stories have fairly obvious, although no less interesting, societal ramifications. Whether looking at the mystical Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in "Harry Potter" or the candy-colored theme-park sanitization of Paris in "Amélie," it is clear that these films present make-believe worlds where nothing can go wrong and the moral good will prevail. Mainstream viewers have always sought uncomplicated escapist entertainment, but the need for it has increased significantly in the past couple months, ever since the hostile chaos of the real world took command of American consciousness (this general move towards heightened fantasy films still does not explain the success of the gritty, torn-from-the-headlines "Training Day," but that's neither here nor there).

Taking a more subjective view of the financial victories of these two films, I must admit that I am uncharacteristically unfazed. Normally, a film that causes such a wide impact sparks from me either enthusiastic support (i.e. "Woo-hoo! ŚMonsters, Inc.' went through the roof!") or, more commonly, utter disgust (as in "Oh (expletive deleted)! ŚPlanet of the Apes' broke records").

But since I am very mixed on both "Harry Potter" and "Amélie," I cannot offer much more than a shrug when considering their status as cultural phenomena. On the one hand, it's regrettable that both have cashed in by emphasizing empty spectacle over substance. But I must also concede that, as far as pure spectacle goes, audiences can do much worse than this intermittently engaging twosome.

"Amélie" is the better film, and gets a marginal recommendation. In fact, the opening 10 minutes have a deadpan, oddball sense of humor that seems to promise an unusual ride ahead. Sadly, the ensuing narrative opts for convention after this initial glimmer of originality.

As the heroine (Audrey Tautou) focuses on solving the problems of others, she neglects her own nagging loneliness. Her destined soulmate is a similarly isolated sex-shop worker (Mathieu Kassovitz), and the film eventually plays out as a funhouse variation of those cutesy romantic comedies where the two central characters just barely miss encountering each other roughly every five minutes.

What barely saves it, apart from Tautou's unique charm, is Jeunet's gift for rambunctious visual mayhem. Just when the central love story threatens to become unbearably cloying, Jeunet makes an awe-inspiring leap into a realm of joyfully unhinged stylistic imagination.

After this and the hollow but eye-catching "City of Lost Children," Jeunet has established himself as a magician of mixed blessings, one who has plenty of formal tricks up his sleeve, but no evident interest in content.

"Harry Potter," on the other hand, suffers from a drought of visual playfulness. Without having read the source material, I am still quite confident that what I like about the film comes from Rowling's book, although the non-stop barrage of narrative events indicates that adapter Steven Kloves may have been a little too faithful to the original novel.

A number of scenes are impressive in general conception (a giant chessboard whose pieces have minds of their own, a flying-broomstick hockey/soccer hybrid called Quidditch, etc.), but director Chris Columbus executes them in a lazy, pedestrian manner that keeps them from leaping off the screen the way they should. I kept watching the film and thinking to myself, "Wow, this must have been a really fun book," mentally keeping track of the squandered potential on display.

But "Harry Potter" did not necessarily have to remain locked on the printed page. If a director who knows how to shoot dazzlingly unreal action had gotten hold of the material, then the transporting fantasy that "Harry Potter" earnestly strives for may have been realized.

As Rowling has three other "Potter" books and Columbus has only been drafted for the second installment, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," it is not too late to salvage the topsy-turvy universe of the prepubescent conjurer.

The solution is clear: bring Jeunet aboard to infuse future "Potter" installments with his wild, giddy stylistic strengths, and the director would in turn benefit from a more involving narrative to work with.

Since a "Harry Potter" movie is almost guaranteed to collect vast amounts of money based on name recognition alone, it would be nice if the recipient of such wealth actually deserved the fortune. Risking optimism, I will say that an improved sequel will gain a "Woo-hoo!" of support from me.

Film Columnist Brett Buckalew is a junior majoring in cinema-television critical studies.

Copyright 2001 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol. 144, No. 63 (Friday, November 30, 2001), beginning on page 5 and ending on page 7.