Little Amélie (2025)

I read in a review of this sumptuous animated movie--which is nominated for an Oascar--is based on the autobiographical novel by artist Amélie Nothom, who was born in Japan to Belgian parents. It is a story that is marked by threes. Amelie is the third child, and the story takes us from her birth to age three. This is the age at which, in Japanese culture, a child descends from the realm of the gods into the world of the everyperson. The word for this infantile holiness is okosama, or “lord child,” and the movie takes us through the spirit of this very earliest coming-of-age with whimsy, cross-cultural commentary, and sometimes fantastical time. Baby Amelie is slow to develop and she is a bit of a worry for her parents: she is slow to walk, slow to talk, and hard to sooth. But once she does, prompted by a bite of Belgian white chocolate from her grandmaman, she does so with an almost instant proficiency. The film takes the idea of early childhood awareness, the phenomenon that children are far more privy to the dynamics of reality than they are able to voice, and provides its lead with the vocabulary to match. She operates out of loving obligation, immeasurable curiosity, and even spite, refusing to speak her brother’s name due to the ever-so-typical brotherly hassling. Amelie also sees visions of things that are not and cannot be, in a way that adds a magical quality to this gorgeously animated film.