The film that changed my life: Richard Ayoade

Philippe Noiret, Catherine Demongeot and Carla Marlier in Louis Malle's Zazie dans le metro. Photograph: Everett Collection/Rex Features

Zazie dans le metro isn't necessarily my favourite film, nor is it really "in the canon" as a great piece of story construction. It's not even Louis Malle's best film. But I associate it with pure pleasure and joy. It was the first film I wanted to study and rewatch; it sparked my interest in film?making.

I recorded it as a teenager but missed the beginning. I must have watched that video 10 times before I ever saw the title sequence, which – with its whistling music – remains one of the best I've seen.

The story is a very flimsy one, really. It's just about a little girl (Zazie) who visits Paris and fulfils a dream of riding on the metro. Similarly, the characters aren't nuanced. They have a very simple energy about them. It's not that the acting isn't good, but this is a film less about performance than style. It feels like pop art. The characters don't exist in the real world, lending Zazie dans le metro a childish spirit and charm.

What's really striking about this film is its "madeness". Before I saw it, films were Hollywood to me. They didn't seem made by people. But Louis Malle invites the viewer to see how his decisions involving look, music, colour and editing create a compassionate whole.

All of Malle's creative decisions feel correct. He had characters look directly into the camera, pioneered the use of camera ramping, and applied very artificial lighting and phoney-looking backdrops. Yet, because it's so expertly made, it doesn't feel kitsch. Similarly, his erratic choice of music works brilliantly, flitting between the lyrical and plaintive whistling at the opening, and strange jazz.

Zazie dans le metro is an adaptation of the novel by Raymond Queneau. Malle sought to create filmic equivalents to the various literary styles with which the author experimented. I love this – adapting the verbal into something so visual. And Malle did so very inventively.

But this "madeness" of Zazie dans le metro genuinely creates the world of a 12-year-old girl, not the director. Malle's directorial solutions fit the material perfectly, conjuring a simple and youthful delight at Paris.

Richard Ayoade directed the acclaimed British indie film Submarine, out now on DVD

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