Absent and accounted for

>> Yann Tiersen on flights of fancy
and political reality

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

It’s one thing to score what many argue was the best international film of 2001, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s exquisite Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain. It’s something more when that soundtrack, taken largely from Yann Tiersen’s current album l’Absente and also previous discs, proves to be (okay, in this writer’s own opinion) the best record of that year.

Brittany-born Tiersen blends vintage chanson, post-rock, neo-classical and toy-trunk kinderphonics into something gentle, poignant and incisive. It’s imaginative and very personal music, which is why Tiersen’s recent foray into political activism is so surprising. After neo-fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen’s strong showing in the first round of French elections, Tiersen and fellow French adult-popster Dominique A. hit the road to drum up some voter motivation.

Mirror: Tell me about the series of five concerts and public meetings you did with Dominique A., against Le Pen and the Front National.
Yann Tiersen: The night of the first round of the elections, I felt the urge to do something, to convince people to go out and vote. I called up Dominique and les Têtes Raides, and we met pretty quickly. We decided it was a good idea to go to towns where the Front National had made strong headway. We wanted to do outdoor concerts, but also play acoustic sets at small bars where we could meet the public and discuss the situation with them. In the end, for me, it was something very simple. When one works at a factory or business, one sees the election results at night, and the next day one goes back to work, talks politics with one’s colleagues and tries to convince them. For us, our way of doing this is to meet our audience.

M: Do you feel it was a success?
YT: If we convinced one person to go vote, that justifies the whole thing. It was simply to connect with people, especially in cities like Strasbourg or Milouse, where there was a certain malaise. People there were stunned by what we did, because the Front National is something they deal with on a daily basis. It’s years now that the extreme right is active in those cities. So it was important for them to see that they were not all alone in their corners.

M: On a similar note, I understand that there were complaints in France about Amélie—people were pointing out that there was a certain racism under the surface of the film.
YT: There was a somewhat polemic article which came out in Libération. It was written by a very good critic whom I quite respect, but he was trying to create a scandal to generate publicity. I resent what he wrote because his argument was that Amélie didn’t present the real Paris as it exists today. I found this absurd because one isn’t going to judge a realist film by the criteria of heroic fantasy movies. It’s very obvious that Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s films are exuberant fantasies which have no pretension of reflecting reality. So I found it a bit ridiculous. :

At Metropolis on Saturday, August 3, 9pm, $14.50

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