In "Black and Blue", her study of postwar French fiction, Carol Mavor describes "La Jetée" as "taking place in a no-place (u-topia) in no-time (u-chronia)" which she connects to the time and place of the fairy tale. She further elaborates: "even the sound of the title resonates with the fairy-tale surprise of finding oneself in another world: "La Jetée" evokes 'là j'étais' (there I was)". By "u-topia", Mavor does not refer to "utopia" as the word is commonly used; she also describes an ambiguity of dystopia/utopia in the film: "It is dystopia with the hope of utopia, or is it utopia cut by the threat of dystopia."