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Why Is Nostalgia So Painful?
In the French film La Belle Époch, wealthy Parisians pay to experience moments from history. Be it dinner with Napoleon, lunch with Mussolini, or a date with their future wife.
It’s a clever film with French old-timer Daniel Auteuil playing an ageing and disillusioned cartoonist whose marriage is on the rocks.
As a comfort to his impending divorce, he’s transported back to 1970s Lyon where he first met his wife.
But this isn’t Back to the Future or Midnight in Paris. There’s no time machine here. The whole thing is re-enacted on a Paris sound stage.
The bar, the hotel, the waiters, the customers — even the cigarettes they smoke— are all painstakingly put together from the protagonist's memory to create the ultimate nostalgia trip.
So what is nostalgia?
I remember the time I took LSD with a friend and listened to Hunky Dory on a continual loop for nine hours. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.
Bizarre, crazy, poignant, explosive, shocking, irrational, fascinating, surprising, astonishing — or any other word you might want to pick out of a thesaurus to describe FUCKING HELL!
I never did it again, I didn’t need to. I’d gleaned everything I wanted from the experience.
