When was the last time you said a film was 'beautiful' without irony?

When we think of childhood as a lost paradise, we likely have in mind an idealized period that roughly spans from ages five to eleven. Our memories don't extend beyond that because, generally, our recollection of the first years of life tends to be a hazy patchwork of vague impressions. Little Amélie, However, he does not choose this path. This adaptation of Metaphysics of Tubes Amélie Nothomb's novel takes the autobiographical foundation of her early memories (she was born and lived with her family in Japan until the age of three) and uses it to create an animated Eden.

The directing duo Mallys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han Jin Kuang have avoided abstraction or a purely sensory aesthetic, common temptations when illustrating this stage of life. The style of Little Amélie It's figurative, but without silhouettes; and the story unfolds in a series of narrative vignettes from A to Z, interspersed with dreamlike or allegorical digressions. Thanks to these choices, the film has a broader scope: it's a tender, gentle, and understandable animation for children, and quite inventive, profound, and free of clichés for adults. At times, it even seems—and this is a bold statement— The Tale of Princess Kaguya of the sensei Isao Takahata! A very beautiful film about the first revelations of any human being: realizing first that living is extraordinary, but that it can also be very painful later on.