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It’s impossible to see this film and not emerge from the dark, popcorn strewn cinema a changed person, if only for a few hours as the enchanting memory of Amélie Poulain and her wondrous world slowly fades away.

Suddenly your own world will look a little different, or perhaps it’s that you find yourself noticing all the small details you tend to overlook from day to day. The people around you and their funny idiosyncrasies appear larger than life, piquing your curiosity. You skip down the stairs, not caring a hoot about the raised eyebrows this elicits, and watch with new amazement as life as you thought you knew it happens all about you.

Yes, “Amélie” is without a doubt the feel-good film of the year. But this is no simpering, schmaltzy film, as some that share the “feel-good” label can be. It’s bold, bright, quirky, feisty, charming, funny, provocative, interesting, refreshing and deeply creative. Rather like the film’s young protagonist.

Amélie Poulain, played by the beautiful and talented Audrey Tautou, this century’s Audrey Hepburn, lives in her own magical version of the Paris she calls home. Set in our time, the film is somehow also timeless, almost of another era.

With a lucid colour scheme and an incredible attention to detail, “Amélie” is a joy to the eye as much as it is to the heart and intellect. Directed by the extraordinarily talented Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who codirected the wildly inspired films, “Delicatessen” and “The City of Lost Children”, with Marc Caro), it’s a documentary of Amélie’s life as seen through her own eyes, including quirky black and white “archive” footage of the now-grown-up Amélie’s childhood. It’s also a peek into the curious lives of others, of which Amélie, who grew up isolated from everyone but her eccentric parents, is in deep awe.

She works in a café in bohemian Montmartre alongside a host of colourful characters. The same can be said for her neighbours in the apartment block where she lives. It’s here, at home, where a series of events leads to Amélie’s quest to do deeds that’ll make a difference to other people’s lives, starting with her mission to find the rightful owner of a box of childhood memoirs.

From here we’re led into a voyeuristic journey where we encounter numerous photobooth capers, behind-the-scenes intrigues in a TV shopping programme, a garden gnome’s travels around the world, and Amélie’s own fascinating games as she pursues her own heart’s desire, Nino Quincampoix (Matthieu Kassovitz).

In French with English subtitles, you won’t even realise it as you’re drawn further and further into this beautiful, captivating film, which is released in South Africa on Friday, April 5.

“Amélie” was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film at this year’s Academy Awards, and in this reviewer’s opinion, it really should have won.