When the film Amélie first premiered in 2001, it became an instant classic and the highest grossing French film to screen in the US at the time. It also made us want to pack our bags, cut our fringe, and move to Paris as soon as possible. It’s no surprise that Amélie won so many hearts, as Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s whimsical romcom places Audrey Tautou and her now iconic bob in the romantic Parisian neighborhood of Montmartre, where she plays a quirky café waitress intent to return a found box of mementos to their rightful owner — spreading happiness along the way and hoping to find some of her own.
According to Jeunet, the film is actually an autobiography about moving to Paris in the 70s, the sense of awe and wonder most feel when visiting the city of love for the first time, and he’s now working on a mockumentary about its production. “I’m writing a fake documentary about the shooting of Amélie, like the Peter Jackson movie about the beginning of cinema [Forgotten Silver],” he said. “It’ll be just stupidity, something very funny, very cheap to make, I hope.”
While in LA for a retrospective of several of his films at the American Cinematheque and USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Jeunet also mentioned that he’d like to time the mockumentary to Amélie’s 20th anniversary. He’s been approached about developing the film into a series, but has always refused on account of it being nearly impossible to recreate the stunning visuals, and the fact that it just wouldn’t be the same without Tautou’s charm.
“It’s a bad idea,” Jeunet said. “It wouldn’t be the same actress, it would be cheap because it wouldn’t have the same budget, and in Paris now it’s so difficult to shoot because there are constructions sites everywhere, so Paris is ugly now. So no, I don’t want to make a sequel or even a series, I just want to make the fake documentary with every document declassified.”
Amelié’s 20th anniversary will be in 2021, so looks like we’ve still got some waiting to do.