Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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97 of 99 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best soundtrack of 2001, March 10, 2002
Every year there ends up being one or two original movie scores that really blow me away. In 1999, the soundtrack to the musical South Park movie was the bomb, and there was also Thomas Newman's American Beauty score. In 2000 there was the dark and ambient Virgin Suicides score by Air and the horrifying Requiem For a Dream music by Clint Mansell. For 2001, Yann Tiersen's Amelie score takes the cake. The movie, if you don't know, is about a quirky girl who lives in Paris. She cultivates a fine taste for the smaller pleasues in life. She comes across a box in her apartment left by a boy 40 years ago, sets out to return it to him, and then discovers that it's her life's calling to brighten people's days. The score is somewhere between Nino Rota's Amarcord and The Godfather music. The mood is fun, tinged with sadness. It's like carnival music with a Fellini funeral procession, and a touch of sheer magic thrown in for good measure.I was surprised to find out that not all of this music was written specifically for Amelie. Yann Tiersen is a guy who, apparently, records by himself and is a veritable Einstein of musical instruments. He plays accordion, guitar, bass, banjo, piano, harpsicord, mandolin, vibraphone, and toy piano among other things. The dominant instruments are accordion and piano, for your information. Apparently he's recorded a bunch of albums already, and some of his old tunes are on here, although you wouldn't be able to pick out the old from the new, except for the fact that some of Amelie songs have the recognizable Amelie "valse," or "waltz," in them. This is the perfect mix of European classical music and experimentalism. A number of the songs are waltzes and would fit in fine with a period film. This compliments the movie because Amelie herself looks like an old movie star put into a post-modern film. The music is the same way. "Pas Si Simple" starts with a typewriter clicking and clacking and that becomes the percussion of another waltz. The orchestral version of "La Valse D'Amelie" is complimented by the toy piano to childishly magical effect. "Soir De Fete" sticks out from the accordion and piano-dominated songs with its mandolins and handclaps, and it ends with a music box playing "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah." It's a strangely unnerving song. The seven-minute "Sur Le Fil" features some really dextrous violin work, again, done by Tiersen. Overall, it will make you feel like you've been to Paris, seen a circus and a funeral procession, walked around a bit, and then come back. And it will make your day much better.
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67 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great music, but....., November 6, 2005
For any that have not seen this movie nor heard the music, you are missing one of the greatest of all time. This is a must see movie, and once you see it, you will want the music.
This CD however, is the same as the Amelie soundtrack with the green cover, that costs about 30 dollars less! The only difference of this cd is the cover, which was marketed for japan. Do not waste money on this cd, get the soundtrack with the green cover.
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62 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love, Dreams, and Amelie, November 27, 2001
This is my first review. All my senses are telling me not to write anything; but, I must say something about this work of song. My best friend came to visit me from home during Thanksgiving. He wanted to watch Amelie in the old theater we have because he knew it would take such a long time to get to Puerto Rico. I went in because I love movies and I was also intrigued by what I had seen of it. My heart was ambushed. The story played before me and love filled my soul. The music was a warm, slow, and gentle stream flowing through me, threatening to spill through my fingertips. Comtine D'un Autre Ete: L'apres Midi, the first of Amelie's masterpieces. Once this song was played, I was hooked, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, along with Yann Tiersen, had my full attention.
Though without a doubt, the director of Amelie did a spectacular job of movie making, without the music of Yann Tiersen, it would never have been as powerful. When La Valse D'Amelie played, I felt like standing up and dancing as a fool. The first love I had ever felt for my girlfriend returned and made me want to laugh so hard, and be so happy, that I almost cried a little for not having the courage to do it then and there. (Then again, it might have been because some foreign film-junkie would have order me to sit my behind down again) And then they played Pas Si Simple, and I was back in the small cobblestone streets of Paris riding my bycicle faster and faster though I have never traveled once there, maybe in some other life perhaps, but faster and faster as people passed me quickly and I caught a faint view of them waving though I kept going down the winding streets, of Paris. Im sorry. I dont usually speak this way. I like it when people tell me of something they love or admire and put it in the words that their soul demands. However, to speak of this music, I have to try my very best to describe its beauty.
Beauty, and beautiful. Two words I do not take likely. These songs, this music, are beautiful.
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