One thing missing from a lot of media that depicts very young children is an understanding of how relatively sophisticated their minds are -or at least as it feels to them. It is something that cartoons and comic strips occasionally get right -the infant who can think beyond their ability to act or process. It’s one of several things that is very refreshing about Mailys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han’s humble animated film Little Amélie based on the semi-autobiographical novel The Character of Rain by Amélie Nothomb. From before birth to the age of three, we are put in the multi-faceted head-space of this little girl beginning to define her reality.
It is a reality of a very specific kind, as Amélie is born into a family of four expatriates, her father a Belgian diplomat in Japan in the 1950s. Amélie’s is actually a slow development, barely emoting, moving, or making a sound for her first two and a half years, until suddenly it all comes in a burst, coinciding with an earthquake. As she begins to grow and be exposed to core concepts of life, primarily through her doting caregiver Nishio, it is a distinctly Japanese framework of custom and environment that she comes to experience the world through -and yet it is an omnipresence that will eventually have to come to an end.
The movie is extremely considered where it comes to its perspective. Like Nothomb, Vallade and Han demonstrate a very keen understanding, backed up by psychologists, of how toddlers see the world -and even though the movie stretches things particularly around Amélie’s highly elaborate verbiage when she does start talking (in a manner that resembles infant characters in comic strips like Baby Blues and Marvin), the thought processes behind her words feel very authentic and understandable. Everything is being encountered for the first time and developing Amélie’s sense of the world and her own relationship to it. She quite literally believes she is God for a while, omnipotent and all-important, until understandings of family and the world beyond her perception are made. They are gradual but not too much so, we see important moments in snippets often at the hands of Nishio -who parents Amélie a fair bit more than her birth family does.
A child’s development comes a lot out of environment, and so many of Amélie’s core concepts come in a Japanese context -she learns to write her name in Japanese before French, her first encounter with animals are koi fish with their gaping mouths receiving food pellets -which she likens to her brother André, who like many a little boy with a new sibling is both fascinated by and mean towards her. Her knowledge base comes exclusively from the unique circumstances of these early years, based on Nothomb's unusually vivid recollection of that time for her. The layout of the house, the environments out her door, which she takes in with rapturous enthusiasm, most especially water -ponds, oceans, and rain excite her immensely, the magic she finds in them infectious through a few choice sequences. And it is from this world too that she learns vital concepts like death -when her grandmother who visited once passes away and she is concerned and confused by the emotional reaction of her father- and even trauma, as when Nishio bizarrely discloses to her the loss of her family to the nuclear bombs.
Nishio is the central figure of this time in Amélie’s life, her reference point and introduction to so much -and while another movie might derive conflict with the actual family in Nishio's mothering tendencies, Little Amélie avoids that and other such tropes in favour of a more healthy dynamic -at least for Amélie. She is witness though to Nishio's cultural isolation for her relationship to a white family. And for the film being so locked on her perspective, it is remarkable how effectively it translates that complicated feeling for the Japanese of sharing space with white Europeans so soon after the war's end.
We see Amélie explore her world and discover herself, learn the nuances of speech, and on two occasions we see her suffer a near-death experience in her curiosity and emotion. Yet through it all the movie is so tender and calming to take in. Defined by its colourful textures, near total absence of line-work, and vague anime-inspired aesthetics, the animation is gorgeous and bold. It pops in that appropriately stark way of a lot of the visual language of children's storybooks, but there is a good deal of sophistication to it as well, especially where it articulates with some magical realism the profundity of Amélie's sensations, the visions of what the world translates as to her -which strikes a good balance between the real and subjective (demonstrating too a nice approximation of a child's imagination). It is a perfectly evocative style to the mood of the piece as well, you get swept away by it quite easily. Certainly the prettiest animation I've seen this year, inauspiciously cute though it may be.
But while the movie is cute, it is never "cute". It is never artificial or cloying the way most North American movies of its demographic are. Little Amélie is mature in the sense of its insightful articulation of early coming-of-age, but it is vibrant and distinct in an appealingly soothing way for children. The art is lush and attractive, the music is warm. And Amélie is an easy character to connect with on any age level.
Quite organically, the film builds towards the devastating first major change in Amélie's life -her family inevitably leaving Japan. And her affection for the place is entirely crystalized in Nishio -the notion of their parting is heartbreaking on both, and the film does well to characterize the whole situation as apocalyptic in scope, as it certainly would be to a three-year-old. The drama of how this is met by Amélie, Nishio, and the family is intense, though poignant. Ultimately what Amélie takes from it is very lovely.
The movie is slight, and barring its perspective not terribly unique on paper for a story of a young child's early life. But on film it is quite remarkable, illustrating with sweet potency the pivotal experiences of this young girl and the intricate ways her environment and relationships -particularly with a non-familial caregiver- lay the foundation for who she will grow into. It is clear this time resonated immensely with Amélie Nothomb throughout her life -as far removed from it as she got. Little Amélie conveys the sense of that well, the permanence of certain sensations and core discoveries ...of rain, of language, and of love. A movie that reckons uniquely with early childhood, and restores its beauty to those who have forgotten it.
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