Murray State University’s Cinema International returns this semester with a slate of films centering around community and a person’s relationship to it.
This week, Cinema International is screening the 2025 French animated film “Little Amelie or the Character of Rain,” which tells the story of a young Belgian toddler living in post-war Japan as she navigates her cultural identity.
MSU Cinema International co-director Ben Post said the film’s original French title, which literally translates to “Amelie or the Metaphysics of Tubes,” is more abstract – but perhaps better encapsulates the story.
“When we meet little Amelie in the film, she's giving us a very metaphysical monologue about the existence or non-existence of God and her own being in the world as sort of a divine figure,” he said.
Post said the work tells the story of how kids, as they grow up, come to understand themselves and their society. But he said the film also speaks to something more internal.
“When the movie begins she is a young child under 2, and she can't talk yet, and she's not really communicating with the outside world. The woman who wrote the semi-autobiographical novel this is based on has later said that she feels like she has [autism spectrum disorder] and she's expressing some element of that,” he said. “But it's also kind of making a broader statement about what kids are like and when is it that moment when that bridge is created between just your sense of all-encompassing self and the world around you, so this is about those bridges getting built. It's about these connections developing between little Amelie and her family, as well as the Japanese people living around her family.”
Post said that Amelie, the daughter of a diplomat who is posted in Japan following World War II, is a young Belgian girl witnessing history and culture collide.
“Japan post-war is having lots of cultural convulsions, [and] creating some wonderful and amazing films that are doing Japanese things with Western tropes. But in the case of Amelie…Her sense of self is being shaped just as much by Japanese culture as by Belgian,” he said. “In fact, there's a very moving moment [when] her grandmother comes to visit from Belgium and gives her a piece of chocolate. And in eating the magical piece of chocolate, she acquires the ability to speak. So that's a sense in which the Belgian chocolate is the magical outside thing coming into her world that's being really deeply shaped by Japan.”
Post said he thought the film was a perfect start for the new season and semester at Murray State.
“Multinational stuff going on in this movie. We're also screening it during Family Weekend, so it's a kid-friendly film. Your kids should either know French or be able to read subtitles to fully enjoy it. But kids who can't read subtitles might still enjoy the animation.”
MSU Cinema International is screening “Little Amelie or the Character of Rain” on Thursday, and Saturday at 7 p.m. in Faculty Hall room 208 on the main campus of Murray State University.
