Amélie mellan fantasi och turistisk verklighet

Abstract

The point of departure of this article is the notion that the movie Amélie from Montmartre (2001) is situated in a liminal space between nostalgic fantasy and touristic reality. The director of the movie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, has stated that his film, much criticized for the allegedly too nostalgic, reactionary and ethnically and culturally too simplistic picture it gives of contemporary Paris and France, should really be seen as an attempt to recreate a nostalgia for a France which once was in his childhood, especially a nostalgia for its pictures, designs and artifacts. In order to understand the strong impact of the film both internationally and above all in France I examine the ways in which the movie and its ambivalent, partly realistic, partly fantasy-inspiret way of telling its story gets its emotional intensity from e.g. the immense collective memory pool of already constructed pictures, texts and music which connotes Paris and the Parisian way of life, including Montmartre where the story takes place. I discuss the ways in which the movie uses these different cultural tropes and vice versa how the city and its tourist industry has been able to use the movie's success to enhance these already strong images. Also the role of the soundtrack as a pastiche of older French popular music genres is discussed. The elements of magic, fairy tale, every day mysticism, serendipity and the emergence of the strange travelling garden gnome in the movie are read as expressions of a postmodern, highly fragmented and self-reflexive consciousness which the film projects on its audience.