Amelie and Happiness

Amelie / Happiness

The gnome brings happiness to Raphael (Amelie’s Father) as it encourages him to travel. It goes from being a symbol of sadness (initially the gnome is used in the shrine to his late wife) to one of happiness.

Dufayel finds happiness as Amelie helps him to find a face for the girl in the painting. Similarly Amelie also uses the girl as a metaphor to consider her own happiness.

Nino finds happiness as he finishes his puzzle when he discovers the identity of the man in the photos. Likewise Nino completes Amelie’s puzzle by being the final piece to her happiness.

Amilie finds happiness in simple pleasures – she collects pebbles, skims them and enjoys the feeling of fingers in grain.

Amelie ensures Bretodeou has his treasure returned to him. The affect of this is that it highlights that everyone is a child inside. We could consider Amelie to be a god-like figure. Rewarding for goodness and punishing the bad.

The fact that Bretodeou had forgotten about his treasure in the first place, reminds the audience that they themselves may have pleasures that they have long forgotten and that returning to things that they initially found happiness in can be a profound experience.

Nino and Amelie aren’t truly happy until the final scene of the film. They complete one another – With their joint happiness comes a renewed sense of freedom. This is only the scene that they meet in which they are not in an enclosed space.

Happiness can also be found in the community demonstrated by the friendships that exist amongst the regulars of the Two Windmills

Nino is the main source of Amelie’s happiness, even with doing the good deeds she still has moments of sadness when she begins to daydream. Once they are together the audience assumes that Amelie will live in the present rather than the past or future.

By each character collecting things, it symbolises how they are piecing themselves together with each item that they add to their collection.