Posts Tagged ‘ jean-pierre jeunet ’

I’ve no doubt that I’ll receive a large amount of email and comments claiming someone else should be listed or someone on the list shouldn’t be. Relax, seriously. As with anything I write here, this is my perception and opinion. These happen to be the ones that I feel are the best. Though I’m thinking of editing out Joel Coen for Tim Burton. Anyway, on with the show:

The second entry in my Great Directors series profiles David Fincher, director of Se7en and Fight Club, among others.  David Fincher’s directorial style seems to always incorporate novel approaches to film-making. When a film’s plot requires a gritty, realistic, but depressing feeling to it Fincher is able to deliver all of that with his directorial skill, as he had to do in making Se7en.   He is similar to Jean-Pierre Jeunet in his command of the visual elements and editing of a film to achieve his goals, but Fincher’s movies are far different than Jeunet’s.

This will be my first entry in a series of profiles of directors I believe have made a serious and consistent contribution of quality movies.  It is an annotated list of movies directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet which I have seen and which are available for purchase in DVD format, at the very least, and encoded properly for viewing in North America.  I have left off some titles mostly due to limited availability or in one case because he is still working on the project.  They are predominantly subtitled from French with the exception of Alien: Resurrection.   Jeunet is one of my favorite directors if for no other reason than when I see a movie he has directed, I have yet to find one I disliked.

Having found success three years ago with Amelie Jeunet moves to this story of a romantic relationship between Mathilde (Audrey Tatou) and her lover, a soldier fighting in World War I.  A Very Long Engagement tells its story by reflecting upon the lives of five soldiers who have been caught during the war injuring themselves in order to get sent home.  The military finds out and decides to send these troops beyond the front-line to have the German soldiers kill them.

Amelie was my first introduction into movies from this particular director and is what I believe to be his second strongest film following The City of Lost Children.  For those who haven’t yet seen it, it is highly recommended.  It is very light-hearted and positive, following the life of Amelie Poulin (played by Audrey Tatou), a twenty-something waitress at a Parisian restaurant who decides to become a do-gooder who helps others better their lives and in the process betters her own life as well.