Amelie Poulain: Shy AS? Shy NT?...

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I just saw Amelie last night with my girlfriend. I've seen the movie about a dozen times but not for a couple of years. I was thinking, is she an aspie?
Edit: Could be a hero for shy aspies? Did the author unknowingly base Amelie on a shy aspie?

The movie was made in 01' and the screenplay was writen after 'Lady Di' and Mother Theresa passed so 99'? A 23 year old (my guess at Amelie's age) would have gone to a school at a time when Aspergers was a seldom used word.

Then again, she could just be a shy NT.

What do you think?

Last edited by Smartalex on 19 Apr 2012, 1:27 am, edited 2 times in total.

I like that movie. but yeah I could kind of relate to the character in some ways...so maybe she was based on someone with AS, either way I did enjoy it.

I was in Paris recently and visited some of the places shown in Amelie, so I had to watch Amelie again when I got back home.

If I remember correctly, her father was a doctor and her mother was a science teacher. In real life, those would be almost stereotypical backgrounds for parents of someone on the spectrum: science and technology centres (like Silicon valley and its equivalents in other countries) are notorious for high rates of ASD.

But it is hard enough to diagnose females with mild ASD in real life, let alone trying to do it with movie characters. Amelie is shy and quirky - she might have ASD, or she might just have social anxiety.

It is interesting, though, how disability is a running theme in the movie, with the sales assistant at the local grocery shop and the artist with the "glass skeleton" and the blind man in the Metro station.

I always realized lucien, the clerk had a disability but I didn't put together the blind man and the glass skeleton. I always thought the glass man was intended to be a metaphor. The reason I say that is because of my favorite quote from the movie, "Amelie, your bones aren't made of glass..." I can't remember the rest of the quote. I just googled it and sure enough there is a brittle bone disease. So now I'm left rethinking this and wondering if the author used the brittle bone disease literally and methaphorically. And also, what did the author mean to portray by having a running theme through the movie.

Thanks One A N, I didn't realize that. Also the father was a doctor in the military which has a regimented lifestyle. Does the military have anything to do with ASD?

I can kind of relate to her character. I'd guess she's just really shy because she doesn't seem to have too many problems working and she has a high amount of empathy for people that she always wants to help them. She's always smiling. I don't know though... I'd say her dad would have been more aspie and possibly her mum.

Lost girl, could you point on a scene about the high amount of empathy?

Is empathy a NT exclusive thing? I thought it wasn't, I'm confused.

Some Aspies do thrive in the structured life of the military. I know one, and when I mentioned this to my psych he said that military life (like academia) has quite a few Aspies.

And yes, the artist does have a brittle bone disease, which is why everything in his apartment is padded, and why he doesn't go outside. He tells Amelie that she is not like him - she CAN risk emotional injury, and should, or she will eventually turn into an emotionally brittle person who cannot stand human contact.

Maybe Amelie is suffering from PTSD!?
Keep in mind that she witnesses the suicide of the tourist that leads to her mother's death when she was a small child.

Well I'm not saying that aspies have no empathy at all. It just seems unlikely to have an aspie getting involved with all of those people's lives. I don't know, from my perspective she just seemed really shy. She had no problems working, she seemed to want to be social but she was just too shy to be and she just seemed like a very happy person who smiled a lot. She seemed to understand human relationships but just seemed like an outsider. Just doesn't seem like an aspie to me but I guess she could be, who knows.

Gotcha one A N. I notice that the father mentioned the gnome came from his regiment. He was not just any doctor but a doctor in the army.

Sarajiel, yeah she did see the suicide. Could that be another 'illness' in the movie's series of disabilities, depression?

Lost girl 82', yeah the part that was so hard to swallow was that she got involved in so many people's lives. I wonder if that was part of the screenwriting story magic or part of some history that the author witnessed and was influenced by. It's hard to swallow for anyone, shy or outgoing person.

I think shyness comes from a realization or a history that shows the person isn't great at talking. But, I'm probably the worst person ever to ask about shyness lol

But I should change it to shy NT or shy aspie. I shouldn't assume every aspie is shy. How can I do this?

I first watched Amelie in 2005 and thought nothing of it except that she was a lovably weird girl. Over the weekend, I came across the DVD and decided to watch it again and, with my new found knowledge of Aspergers, I was struck by the bleeding obvious on many occasions.

Amelie is not the only aspie..nearly half of the Characters are exhibit some aspie qualities:
-The dad with his fascination of gnomes and his literal response to figurative questions
-Amelie's mum
-The senile man who likes to punch holes in plants
-His wife who is extremely well organised and likes to keep a classification system
-Their daughter who taxidermized her dead pet dog and placed it such that it seemed to look at a picture of her late husband on the wall...
-Amelie's boyfriend who likes to collect discarded passport photos
-The glass skeleton man who has been painting copies of the same picture for a number of years ...
The list is endless. Moreover, when watched in the original French language, it is full of double entendres which make subtle reference to Asperger's syndrome .for example, the grocer asked Amélie:"Alors, ma petite fille, est-ce que c’est pour une petite botte d’asperge ou pour les archives du quartier?" In other words, are you looking for a bunch of asparagus or the archives of the Borough? The French for asparagus is " Asperge" which sounds similar to aspergers . And many aspies love to delve in the archives.

The story is full of these and it's fun to identify them all