If you need an infusion of magical realism on one of these endlessly rainy or super-hot summer weekends, here’s a triple feature that will fill you with so much joy that your heart may explode and you will have to fight the urge to randomly kiss strangers on the street.
There’s never been a movie that’s felt more like a giant hug than Amelie. If you only have room for one movie, this is it (don’t let the subtitles scare you away). It’s like an ice cream cone of hope with heart sprinkles. It’s joie de vivre, made concrete. It will make you believe in magic and love and fate. It will make you believe in endless possibility. It will make you run out to your garden to see if your gnome is still there…and then wish he wasn’t.
If, after that, you are not too filled with joy to move, you can put in Chocolat and experience a little more magical fairytaleishness (this time, in English). One woman’s journey to a town that medieval time forgot and her fated impact on all the residents there will leave you with a feeling of infinite connectedness and hopefulness. And, of course, a lingering belief in invisible kangaroos. And, with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp starring, there’s even eye-candy for everyone!
If, after all that, you still want more joy and hope and magic (you glutton, you!) and aren’t dissuaded by subtitles or surrealistic symbolism or some, shall we say, adult content, then let me introduce you to Antonia’s Line. Yes, it’s Dutch. Very, very Dutch. Hope rings eternal and joy practically pours out of this movie at times…although that joy, here, as in life, is juxtaposed with pain and suffering. Magic, again, finds its way into the essence of this film. Matriarch, Antonia, and her kinship line represent Life with a capital ‘L’. Antonia (the body), Daniela (the spirit), Teresa (the mind) and Sarah (the heart) represent the totality of the human experience in all its glories and tragedies. They live, they love, they dream, they die, as we all do but they do it with a spirit and a cast of characters that we could only hope, or dread, to experience.
Amelie and Chocolat are available at Acorn. Antonia’s Line is available through SWAN. Happiness and joy are available everywhere, if you just know where to look! So, seek, find, embrace and enjoy…Vive la vie!