Saw Amélie again on telly last night. God, it's fantastic. It's such an utterly charming confection. Audrey Tatou is supremly gorgeous in it and it's quirky and whimsical in a fabulously French way. Hooray for France; there's more than just a blood-thirsty but up-tempo national anthem to admire!

A second viewing reminded me of seeing it for the first time in the cinema. That day, as I watched I became more and more terrified that "something bad" would happen. I thought no-one could have the courage to make a film these days where the heroine does wonderful things for others and still gets the guy without at least one unexpected fatality. Or at least a close friend, blood relation or cute looking dog falling into a coma. So as I watched I grew increasingly desperate for that not to happen, to the point where (like watching the first ten minutes of Casualty) I expected catastrophe round every corner. Nino will fall of his bike here! Papa Poulain will die in a plane crash! I think if it had been a Hollywood production "something bad" would have happened: the crass emotional shorthand that equates profundity only with tragedy would demand it. But nothing bad did happen, or at least only to the greengrocer. And for all its frothy and fantastical whimsy I think there is a profound point to it: humanity is capable of doing good stuff. For all the horrors of the world (ancient or modern), there are a million happy endings, a million selfless acts, a million quietly altruistic moments. And who's doing this good stuff? People are - humans merely being. Honestly, one dolphin saves a boy from drowing and we're all expected to wonder at the magic of nature and hang our heads in shame for destroying their habitat. I'm sorry about all that but there's a lot more to humankind than war and ecological devastation. Amelie shows us that for a second. Thinking about it, people are like the old yellow pages ad., "we're not just there for the bad things in life". we are the good stuff.