Je t'aime moi non plus

A decidedly off-beat love story as two characters from the fringe seek love in a wasteland of flesh and garbage, only to find it fleetingly in the back of a garbage truck. Kurant's luminous cinematography and Gainsbourg's leisurely pace do much to bring beauty to scenes that might otherwise be unbearably sordid.

Dallesandro and Birkin are beautiful to look at and play a dysfunctional couple in more ways than one. The film explores the poignancy of emotional need, the vulnerability to abuse and the impossibility of communication within the couple. It's a tale of surprising tenderness and cruelty.

Gainsbourg's soundtrack is surprisingly sparse, but used imaginatively and with more than a hint of irony.

We learn several things about Jane Birkin (once something of a sex symbol) here: 1 She bellows as loud and roughly as any woman I've ever seen on screen; really, REALLY loud; 2 She fakes a woman who finds anal intercourse unbearably painful really well (how realistic you find this may be based on your preconceptions about that act or your actual experience; I found it a touch over the top); 3 She really did have an incredibly boyish, nay, disturbingly thin, body in this period; sometimes distractingly so. She certainly had elfin charm at this point in her life and is most compelling when she's not.. well, screaming. (What does it say about her husband casting her in a distinctively masochistic role? Probably not much more than that, as a couple, they liked to maintain a faintly scandalous image.) Casting Joe Dallesandro was an interesting nod to Warhol, intended or not, though I don't think Gainsbourg was much associated with him. In a film which focuses more on his face than other attributes which brought him to prominence, he uses it well. There are some stray cameos by famous French actors like Gerard Depardieu and Michel Blanc. Overall, the film feels like a French homage to the darker sort of modern American Western, with lots of dreary landscapes and the arrival of two drifters. A lot of it feels cliché, albeit with a sense of homage, and the story is rather desultory overall. There are touches of humor, notably in the hotels where Birkin's character's... discomfort... greatly disturbs the other guests. Apparently Truffaut loved this film. I didn't.

We had hoped that Serge Gainsbourg's most well-known film would demonstrate his interesting - if a bit twisted - perspective and style. Unfortunately, by the time "Je t'aime moi non plus" was made, Serge had become an "old fart", to borrow a recurring line from the movie. Instead of the inventive, hip Serge of the 'sixties, pulling musical influences from around the globe and spicing them up with naughty references, he had become the jaded fatalist, using shock value out of habit rather than effect. It would also appear that he had been a bit too influenced by Godard's "Weekend" for his own good. Long tracking shots of the protagonist's truck passing aimlessly through a barren landscape littered with wrecked cars are employed at least four times. What this film and its actors really needed were a plot and some actual dialogue. Birkin, Dallesandro and the rest of the cast do credible jobs with what they've been given to work with, but their doomed love triangle is bog-standard 1950s melodrama, with a gay twist. Absolutely wasted here is Gerard Depardieu, who turns in an awkward and unconvincing cameo as a homosexual beastialist. Thankfully, Gainsbourg still had talent in him as a composer, and the film benefits from his soundtrack. I suspect he was not encouraged to attempt more directorial efforts, as after "Je t'aime..." he only did vanity films.

lovely.

JTMNP is for fans of Showgirls, of movies that seek a level of sophistication beyond their reach, and in the process reveal layers of untold truth.

it's second rate, cheesy, silly, extravagant, ribald, shallow. and in that, utterly wonderful. it shows us a time and place that couldn't have been shown to us with an intentional eye.

i'm still 'haunted' by many scenes in the film, by swirling sunny buttocks, and the screams of anal invasion, and the scarf snapping lover of the hero.

watch it if you can find it. serge gainsbourg was france.

The film is a classic one. Jane Birkin incredibly sexy and Depardieu in a surprise-part. Erotic scenes that you will never forget...