The Feature Film Starring A Photo Booth

As a way to create and preserve personal and professional memories, a corporate photo booth hire has touched many lives in one way or another.

Because of this, it is perhaps unsurprising that there are a lot of films that feature a photo booth, either in the background, as part of a montage scene or mentioned in passing. 

There is even a 2012 short film called Photo Booth, about three soldiers who encounter a mysterious photo booth and the unexpected memories that they trigger.

However, in the century-long history of cinema, there is only one major feature film where a photo booth is central to the story it is trying to tell.

The 2001 film Amélie (or The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain) is one of the most successful French-language films ever made, and at the centre of its charming, eccentric romantic comedy story is a humble photo booth.

The story is about Amélie, a shy waitress played by Audrey Tautou who after stumbling upon a memory box devotes herself to helping other people through somewhat elaborate and bizarre schemes.

The central romance in the story, however, concerns Amélie herself and a man named Nino, who collects the tattered remains of photographs discarded near a photo booth at the Paris Métro station.

This causes their paths to increasingly intertwine, with Nino dropping a photo album made of these torn photos, taking pictures of her own to send him messages in an instant photography version of a cat-and-mouse game.

This then leads, after a few more bits of miscommunication caused by her shyness, to the two falling in love and starting a relationship.

The photo booth itself is interesting, as whilst the film is noteworthy for its saturated colours and hyperreal directing style, the booth’s pictures are more muted and celebrate the uniqueness of each Parisian who takes a picture and captures a second of their personal story, only to throw it away.