By Arameh Etemadi:
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain is a delicate, philosophical animated film about a particle that flows through the world and slowly becomes human. One that sees itself as a tube. We are not owners; we are only passages. We are flow, not container.
The film keeps reminding us that we are all particles separated from God, separated from the original source. That is why Amélie, at the very beginning of her existence, believes herself to be divine. Her gaze is never childlike, her behavior nothing like other infants or children. She is among the rare few who remember how they came into the world and what they were separated from. She sees herself as still connected to the source, distinct from everyone around her, slow to let others in. But slowly, attachments form. Her thinking deepens. She begins to learn about loss and death. The film, told through a child’s voice but with a deep eye, is a blend of external events and metaphysics, and will resonate with anyone drawn to questions of existence and being.
And yet the film never becomes heavy. Its bright colors and warm visuals keep it grounded in something gentle and inviting. Little Amélie is, in the end, a quiet moral lesson for anyone who has forgotten where they came from, and started taking all of this a little too seriously.