On Amelie, mostly

I didn't like Amelie. I don't know anyone else who didn't. I'll try to explain why I didn't.
Firstly, the movie is very, very heavy on narration. Now, apart from the obvious difficulty of watching a movie that you have to understand through subtitles, it somehow becomes worse when the (first half of the) movie is mostly visuals with a voiceover. There was so much of voiceover that I often missed enjoying the visuals themselves and almost felt like I was reading the script at some points.
Secondly, I believe films that make heavy use of narration as a device to take the story forward are somehow taking an easy way out. Films, like plays, are not meant to have narrations. There are characters in the films that should be used such that the story moves forward through them. The best example I can think of is the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. This is a play that has (I think) no narration at all and is yet profoundly moving. Contrast this with another celebrated play I read in a course a year ago called Antigone by Jean Anouilh. This play gave maximum speaking time to its narrator. While Death... and Antigone were both heavy on dialogues, the former had short dialogues that never lasted for more than a couple of minutes and the latter had the narrator speaking for ten minutes or more. I realize Art cannot be tied down by laying down strict formats but I also think allowing characters long soliloquies makes it much easier for the playwright than if he/she involved many characters in taking the plot forward. I think this is somewhat analogous to a filmmaker who choreographs a beautiful song and dance in his film as visual spectacle versus one who uses the song to take the story forward (and no, not by conveniently making the hero a stage performer).
I like Amelie's OST though, especially the one song I keep listening to (La valse d'Amelie). I find it slightly sad and touching in a poignant sort of way, although most people find it happy music. But then most people also like the film.
My third reason for not having liked the film is that I just find Audrey Tatou's permanently wide-eyed look stupid and I feel diabetic because of all the sweetness in her chracter. I like sweet movies too (Love, Actually - although a woman, and a filmmaker no less, claims it is misogynistic) but there was something that irritated me about this one.
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Please read The Kite Runner if you haven't already. After a long, long time, I found a book I totally loved from my heart without getting mixed up in how well regarded it was and a book I finished in half a day because I could genuinely not put it down. This is a book that is, for once, as touching as its blurbs promise. It squeezed tears from my eyes at least a couple of times.