page_title: L'Âme-stram-gram
section_title: Music video
hierarchical_section_title: L'Âme-stram-gram / Music video
caption_attribution_description: English: Great wall of China at Mutianyu near Beijing. Français&#160;: La Grande Muraille de Chine à Mutianyu près de Beijing
context_page_description: "L'Âme-stram-gram" is a 1999 song recorded by French singer-songwriter Mylène Farmer. It was the lead single from her fifth studio album Innamoramento and was released on 9 March 1999. The lyrics were written by Farmer and the music was composed by Laurent Boutonnat. Musically, the song has techno and dance influences which marked an artistic change in the singer's career, although the rest of the album contains more pop songs. Based on a famous children's counting rhyme, the song is primarily about confidence, secret, and confession and uses the lexical field of psychoanalysis; however, the many puns and double entendres can also provide another meaning explicitly referring to sexuality.
  Inspired by the romantic comedy horror film A Chinese Ghost Story, the expensive eight-minute music video was shot by Hong Kong film director Ching Siu-Tung in Beijing and displays Farmer portraying twin sisters who have supernatural powers; the first being kidnapped by Chinese bandits and rescued by her sister, who dies in the process, causing the first twin to commit suicide. Farmer promoted the song by performing it on three TV shows and then singing it on two of her subsequent tours.
context_section_description: The 7:50 video - 4:42 in a shorter version - was filmed by Hong Kong film director Ching Siu-Tung in Beijing over five days and four nights, although Farmer spent two weeks in China to oversee its production. Like most of the singer's other videos, it was a Requiem Publishing and Stuffed Monkey production. The screenplay, written by Farmer, is based on a Chinese legend and the film series A Chinese Ghost Story, made by Ching. The staging was done extremely carefully and the images were very aesthetic. The video had a budget that reached 900,000 euro, as the construction of scenery included a reconstruction of the Great Wall of China and digital special effects. Despite the cold temperatures during the shooting, Farmer was not wearing a T-shirt under her costume and also directed most of the stunts. She explained: "We worked a lot, sometimes twenty hours without interruption. Weather conditions were difficult. I had a permanent change of costumes. But it was exciting and it was the most important." Valérie Bony, a dancer in Farmer's concert tours, played Farmer's body double when the latter was shown from her back. Although the song deals with sexual issues, there are no sex scenes in the video.
  The video features twin sisters, played by Farmer, and several Chinese bandits. Initially, the sisters are dressed in green and purple veils and play together amongst pastel veils and hangings. A troupe of bandits arrives on horseback and pursues the sisters. Suddenly, the women flick out their long tongues, producing a powerful magical effect, causing the bandits to fall from their horses. Nevertheless, the bandits manage to kidnap one sister and knock the other one down, leaving her for dead.  The kidnapped sister is brought to an immense stable where captives are being tortured, and she is threatened with violation. The other sister rushes to rescue her twin, despite being injured and exhausted. As she climbs the long staircase leading to the stable, she falls and dies.  Her soul leaves her body, rises to the sky, and flies to her sister's aid.  The sisters work their magic again to kill their enemies and escape. They then play in the air under the full moon; however, in the early morning, the soul of the dead sister disappears in the sky.  The living sister, desperate, throws herself from the top of the Great Wall of China to be with her sister in the afterlife. At the end, the two sisters' souls, now dressed in white veils, frolic in the sky.
  According to journalist Caroline Bee, the video illustrates the idea of "a myth overtaken by reality"; indeed, "the image of a serene life enshrined in the completeness, came to be overtaken by the harsh reality. This fantasy can exist and be realised only outside reality".
caption: The music video used a replica of the Great Wall of China, which justified its high cost.
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