Monday morning foreign-region DVD report: 'Je T'aime, Moi Non Plus'

This woman has a Hermes bag named for her...

Ah, it's a story as old as time itself: homosexual boy meets androgynous girl, homosexual boy tries to initiate androgynous girl into the joys of anal sex because it's the only way he can really make it, androgynous girl screams like a banshee, homosexual boy's boyfriend turns murderously jealous...

Je T'aime, Moi Non Plus, which translates profoundly and nonsensically as "I love you, me neither," is the 1976 directorial debut of notorious French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, and it's named after his '60s hit single, a breathy, organ-driven musical simulation of the act d'amour that influenced, among others, future disco diva Donna Summer. The picture, a pet project of Gainsbourg's for some time prior to its realization, is not nearly as baroque a creation as some of his music. Shot in what appear to be the most barren areas of rural France and taking place in an indeterminate location (all the signs at the truckstop where most of the action, such as it is, is set are in English), it's laboriously self-serious, which backfires on Gainsbourg, as the utter humorlessness of Je Taime... makes its central conceit almost risible.

Warhol/Morrissey star Joe Dellesandro, in the middle of his European sojourn and looking pretty good, plays Krassky, the garbage-truck driver whose colleague, Padovan (Hugues Quester), is also his regular sex interest. (It gets lonely out on those pickup runs, I'm sure.) Gainsbourg's wife at the time, the great Jane Birkin, plays Johnny, the truckstop cook/waitress who catches Krassky's attention via looking like a boy. Damn, she's skinny.

Gainsbourg's arty settings and compositional ideas are well captured by vet cinematographer Willy Kurant, and all the performers (including a curly headed Gerard Depardieu, whose cameo depicts his character leading a horse and snorting coke) are good, but the above-mentioned self seriousness and the skimpy, anecdotal storyline brought me up short. Its denoument, which suggests that in a world wherein real love rules no recrimination, no matter how putatively justified, should ever take place, is moderately provocative, but doesn't succeed in elavating this above curio status. I'm glad I saw it, and the extras=free Optimum UK disc is a good looking transfer, but this item pretty much defines the category "for fans only."

Comments

[Craig Keller]

Glenn, I kind of think this film is close to a masterpiece. Having said that, you should check out his second feature 'Equateur,' and third (and penultimate) feature, 'Charlotte for ever' -- they're available in good transfers (albeit sans sous-titres) on a double-feature two-disc set from France, released by an obscure label called L.C.J., and branded as part of a series (?) called: "Les Grandes gueules du cinéma"! (The final feature, 'Stan the Flasher,' is also out on French DVD, but I haven't heard anything about the quality...)

Anyway, 'Charlotte for ever' -is- his masterpiece, and I highly recommend it. Two months back, The New-York Ghost ran a piece I wrote about the film... not sure how to access it online, as they come by PDF-delivery only. Not many people know of it outside of (and probably within) France, but it has at least one high-profile champion (in addition to some of the Positif staff) -- JLG.

For what it's worth, the translation "I Love You Me Neither" has always rankled my ass. "Moi non plus" sure does mean "me neither," but in the context of a conversation or two-way dialogue, it serves to mean, like, "Yeah, what you just said? I pretty much have to express the opposite." A better translation of the title of Gainsbourg's film (and the song) would be:

"I Love You - I Don't."

(Like: " 'I love you.' - 'I don't [love -you-].' ", natch.)

craig.

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