Based on the 2000 novel “The Character of Rain” by Amélie Nothomb, “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain” follows the title girl, who is born to a Belgian family living in Japan. At first, she is completely unresponsive, but slowly she awakens — spurred by an earthquake, the kindness of a Japanese nanny and some Belgian white chocolate gifted to her by a beloved grandmother.
Told from young Amélie’s perspective, the film takes the audience on her odyssey of discovery, eventually revealing that she is more than a mere child. It’s beautiful and fascinating, rendered in a loving, painterly style and featuring moments of surrealism.
The movie, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, is unlike anything else you will see (or feel) all year.
One of the directors, Liane-Cho Han, who had previously worked on “The Illusionist” and “The Little Prince,” read Nothomb’s book when he was 19. It left such a lasting impression that he thought about adapting it years later. “It made so much sense to do it as an animation, because you have those moments where, for example, she walks on the sea,” Han said. “There was a lot of possibility in animation to translate the book, to be sure we are seeing the beauty and the wonders of the world through the eyes of this universe.”
But it wasn’t easy. Han gave his collaborator Maïlys Vallade (whom he had worked with on “The Little Prince”) a copy of the book with the idea that they would direct together. She loved what she read but wasn’t sure it could be translated into a film.
“Many people told us that’s an unadaptable book,” Vallade said. “It’s a really tiny book, but there are so many theatrics in it.”
The story piqued their interest, but Amélie, who refers to herself as a god, was difficult to capture for filmmakers who like to home in closely on their characters.
“It’s so paradoxical,” she explained. “It’s this little girl in her bubble and she really wants to be always in this bubble, but she will explode this bubble to connect with the people. That was important in this story: to break frontiers and make connections.”
Vallade said the process took seven years, five of those devoted to honing the script. The directors encouraged their team to bring their own childhood memories to the production, to enhance the emotional component. The idea, Vallade said, was to find in Amélie a balance of the real and the fantastical. Han added, “Even in the grounded moments, we wanted to be sure that there is something magical.”
This story first ran in the Awards Preview issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
