‘Little Amélie or the Character of Rain’ Review: An Impressionistic Portrait of Childhood

An adaptation of Amélie Nothomb’s autobiographical novella The Character of Rain, Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han’s Little Amélie or the Character of Rain amusingly implies in its opening moments that Francophones are vulnerable to existentialist methods of pondering. Depicting the start of Amélie (Loïse Charpentier), the little one of a Belgian couple (Marc Arnaud and Laetitia Coryn) dwelling in Japan, the first scene is accompanied by narration from the woman wanting again at her supply. Uncovered to the sudden mild and sound of the world exterior the womb, Amélie begins considering the mysteries of life and even questions if she may be a god incarnated into what she later phrases the “jail” of a physique.

The mundane and transcendent dance hand in hand as Little Amélie or the Character of Rain follows Amélie via her first few years navigating the acquainted terrain of childhood, whereas often grappling with the discombobulation introduced on by studying how social cues differ throughout cultures. The movie is keyed to the essence of its protagonist, all the time breathlessly speeding forward and interested in all the things, be it the habits of her older siblings or the tradition and historical past of Japan that she slowly gleans from her nanny, Nishio (Victoria Grosbois).

To visualise the tradition conflict that Amélie experiences, the filmmakers undertake a mode pitched someplace between anime and watercolor. Characters have the expressive eyes and broad bodily reactions frequent to the former, however colours typically bleed over the linework of characters and backgrounds, smudging their definitions. This ingeniously conveys Amélie’s still-forming sense of perspective, seeing the world as objects not but firmly mounted in her thoughts past the easiest ideas, and as such topic to fluidity. Nishio specifically turns into each a sororal and maternal determine to the woman, providing simply as a lot care as Amélie’s precise mom whereas additionally speaking to her extra like a peer than an grownup or different image of authority. Each time Amélie and Nishio embrace, the animation makes it appear as in the event that they’re about to meld into each other.

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain modifications up its breezy account of a toddler’s progress with the occasional second of slowed-down rumination when the woman asks a query past her years and an grownup respects her sufficient to provide her a thought of reply. This occurs most frequently when the topic of World Warfare II arises; set in the late-’60s, the movie takes place quickly sufficient after the struggle the place even a younger girl like Nishio can have recollections of surviving it.

When Amélie asks her nanny to speak about her experiences as half of a bigger try to grasp the notion of depth, Nishio gathers herself to discover a technique to confront her trauma for the first time, and to articulate it in a method a toddler can grasp. The place the movie depicts Amélie’s flights of creativeness in floridly detailed vogue, Nishio’s recollections are visualized obliquely. As the girl remembers the Allied fire-bombings whereas washing rice, the sloshing water in the bowl curls upward into the form of flames earlier than rapidly returning to its pure state, reflecting how Nishio seeks to suppress these recollections. However as guarded as she could also be on the subject of speaking about the struggle, Nishio remains to be extra forthright about the topic than another Japanese characters who stew in silent anger towards the West for the losses they suffered.

In such moments, Little Amélie or the Character of Rain hints at complexities that its toddler protagonist isn’t but able to deal with. The woman’s early reveries about godhood stem from a standard Japanese perception that we’re all born as deities and slowly grow to be mortal as our cognition develops over one’s first few years of life. The wistful, elegiac high quality of that perception—that information in the end overrides an inborn sensual oneness with the universe—infuses what’s in any other case a light-weight, charming coming-of-age story. “Once you’re three you see all the things and perceive nothing,” Amélie remarks close to the movie’s finish, and the extra that the woman comes to grasp, the extra finite and concrete the boundaries of her world grow to be.