CREDITS AMELIE, 2001 dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet Audrey Tautou Mathieu Kassovitz Serge Merlin

"On September 3rd 1973, at 6:28pm and 32 seconds, a bluebottle fly capable of 14,670 wing beats a minute landed on Rue St Vincent, Montmartre. "

Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who made the studio-bound Delicatessen and City of Lost Children, risks jettisoning the darkness of those films to tread the fine line between charmingly whimsical and sick-inducing twee. He just about manages to stay on the right side, turning Paris, and particularly Montmartre, the director’s home turf, into a brightly-coloured. fantasy (though the interiors were shot in the studio in Germany, in Cologne).

Amelie location: Amelie's apartment: Rue des Trois Freres, Montmartre, Paris

The film opens with a bluebottle buzzing along the charming, cobbled rue Saint Vincent, running behind Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. Amelie's apartment and the grocery store can also be found in Montmartre (close to the bar where de Niro and crew meet up in John Frankenheimer's Ronin).

Amelie location: The greengrocer store: Au Marche de la Butte, Passage des Abbesses, Montmartre, Paris

And not far away is metro Lamarch-Caulaincourt, the beautiful Metro station with the double staircase, where the blind man experiences a moment of transcendence as Amelie describes the mouthwatering sights of the bustling market on rue Lamarck.

Amelie location: Amelie describes the market to the blind man: Lamarck-Caulaincourt Metro Station, Paris

Amelie (Audrey Tautou) searches for ‘Bretodeau’, to return his box of precious mementoes, in a phone booth at the northern end of rue Mouffetard at rue Clovis, down in theLeft Bank's cosmopolitan Latin Quarter, not far from the Pantheon. The bar where she overhears the result of her good deed is just to the south, Le Verre a Pied, 118 bis rue Mouffetard.

Amelie location: Amelie returns the box of mementoes: La Verre a Pied, Rue Mouffetard, Paris

She's imbued with a surge of love and the desire to help mankind while crossing the wooden Pont des Arts, by the Louvre (scene of the failed suicide attempt in Boudu Sauve des Eaux, Jean Renoir's 1932 classic, remade by Hollywood as Down and Out in Beverly Hills).

Amelie location: Amelie sees Nino's ìOu et quand?î posters: Line 6 Station of La Motte-Picqet-Grenelle, Paris

Amelie sees Nino's “Ou et quand?” posters on the Line 6 Station of La Motte-Picqet-Grenelle. She sets up a complicated assignation, involving following blue arrows, on the steps in front of Sacre Coeur, and solves the riddle of the mystery man, who’s been leaving his photo everywhere, in the ticket hall of Gare de l’Est.

Amelie location: The video store in which Nino works: Palace Video, Boulevard de Clichy, Pigalle, Paris

Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz) works in Palace Video, 37 boulevard de Clichy, a sex shop in the raunchy Pigalle district (where you’ll find the original, though rather touristified, Moulin Rouge nightclub is still operating).

Amelie location: Crème brulée: Café les Deux Moulins, Montmartre

But, of course, the location you really want to see is the lovely art deco cafe where Amelie works, which is, surprisingly, real. It’s Cafe des Deux Moulins, 15 rue Lepic at rue Cauchois. It can be a bit tricky to find. Rue Lepic winds down from Place du Tertre then seems to merge into rue des Abbesses. In fact, the street turns sharply south, and the cafe is south of rue des Abbesses.

And, yes, you can sample the crème brulée here, which is now named after Amelie.