Eva: Les temps sont durs pour les rêveurs. — Amélie

"Jean-Pierre Jeunets Amelie is a delicious pastry of a movie, a lighthearted fantasy in which a winsome heroine overcomes a sad childhood and grows up to bring cheer to the needful and joy to herself. You see it, and later when you think about it, you smile. Audrey Tautou, a fresh-faced waif who looks like she knows a secret and cant keep it, plays the title role, as a little girl who grows up starving for affection. Her father, a doctor, gives her no hugs or kisses and touches her only during checkups—which makes her heart beat so fast he thinks she is sickly. Her mother dies as the result of a successful suicide leap off the towers of Notre Dame, a statement which reveals less of the plot than you think it does."

"Voilà, ma petite Amélie, vous navez pas des os en verre. Vous pouvez vous cogner à la vie. Si vous laissez passer cette chance, alors avec le temps, cest votre cœur qui va devenir aussi sec et cassant que mon squelette. Alors, allez y, nom dun chien!"

"In the apartment downstairs from Amélie lives Raymond Dufayel; they call him "The Glass Man." He was born with bones as brittle as crystal. All his furniture is padded. A handshake could crush his fingers. Hes stayed inside for twenty years. Time has changed nothing."

"Nino is late. Amelie can only see two explanations. 1 - he didnt get the photo. 2 - before he could assemble it, a gang of bank robbers took him hostage. The cops gave chase. They got away... but he caused a crash. When he came to, hed lost his memory. An ex-con picked him up, mistook him for a fugitive, and shipped him to Istanbul. There he met some Afghan raiders who took him to steal some Russian warheads. But their truck hit a mine in Tajikistan. He survived, took to the hills, and became a Mujaheddin. [Increasingly angry] Amelie refuses to get upset for a guy wholl eat borscht all his life in a hat like a tea cozy."

"I had two heart attacks, an abortion because I smoked crack while I was pregnant. Besides that, Im fine. [to her father, who is not paying attention]"

"The titular heroines search for love and meaning in Montmartre made the world fall for her and the city as viewed through her eyes. Amélie, released in 2001, is one of the UKs highest-grossing foreign language films. But 15 years later, does its director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (pictured below) think he could make the film today given the tragic events the city has faced? "This period is more cynical, especially in France," says Jeunet from his Parisian office. "Fifteen years ago I showed the film in Toronto and the day after the screening it was 9/11. I was stunned like everybody, and I thought – Amélie is finished in the USA. But it was the opposite. People need positive stories, they need something with joy, something light. "Just two days ago it was screening in a theatre in Paris packed full of young people. Everybody had seen the film before – only two people hadnt – but when you have something positive in a story, its always a success because its not easy to write a positive story without it being sugary like stupid American films."