Arts Studies and Criticism

This paper examines the contested terrain of French national identity through a comparative analysis of two emblematic postmodern films: Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie (2001) and Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine (1995). As France grapples with the challenges of postcolonial immigration, neoliberal globalization, and the erosion of its universalist republican ideals, cinema has emerged as a critical battleground where competing visions of French identity are negotiated and contested. Through the theoretical lens of Fredric Jameson's postmodernism — characterized by pastiche, the waning of affect, and simulation — this study explores how these two films employ opposing aesthetic strategies to either conceal or confront France's fractured social landscape. Amélie represents a retreat into nostalgic fantasy, utilizing whimsical stylization, saturated color palettes, and pastiche techniques borrowed from the French New Wave to construct an ethnically homogeneous, depoliticized vision of Paris. Jeunet's Montmartre functions as a hyperreal simulation that actively erases the presence of France's postcolonial tensions, the banlieues, and contemporary social inequalities in favor of sentimental micro-interventions and romantic idealism. The film's spatial logic privileges seamless movement through charming interiors and perfectly manicured streets, creating an enclosed utopia that masks systemic fractures beneath aesthetic harmony. In stark contrast, La Haine employs gritty realism, black-and-white cinematography, and handheld camera work to foreground the brutal realities of France's suburban peripheries. Kassovitz's film refuses the erasure of the banlieues, instead positioning these marginalized spaces as central to understanding France's structural dysfunction. Through circular narrative structure, claustrophobic framing, and the spatial entrapment of its multiethnic protagonists, La Haine exposes the Republic's failure to deliver on its egalitarian promises, depicting a society caught in a downward spiral toward inevitable explosion. This comparative analysis reveals that postmodernism is not inherently apolitical but rather becomes a vehicle for distinct ideological positions. While both films utilize postmodern techniques, their divergent aesthetic choices construct radically different responses to France's identity crisis: Amélie chooses aesthetic escapism and cultural nostalgia, while La Haine demands confrontation with uncomfortable truths. Together, these films illuminate the ongoing struggle between remembering and forgetting, illusion and exposure, in contemporary French society's negotiation of who belongs and who remains excluded from the national imaginary.