Gaisbourg review

Gainsbourg

The bio-pic is becoming a staple in the world of Hollywood and the British film industry. Be it action packed historical pieces following great men and their troubles, or modern day celebrities and their troubles. All these films choose to follow the turmoil of the spotlight; Walk The Line, a wonderful exploration into the anguish of Johnny Cash, Ray shows the plight of the genius of Ray Charles, and although boys these films are affecting, full of talent and all round enjoyable, they pretty much follow the plot line of boy is born, boy is hurt, boy sleeps around, boy takes drugs, boy usually meets salvation. This formula is not always quite so exact in the British exploration, films such as Nowhere Boy add an artistic flourish to a boy grows up, boy gets hurt… oh. These film have a tendency to focus on the agony and the consequential affect on a psyche, all shown through pained close-ups and monologues where all the deep, dark truth of the past is dragged out. Gainsbourg is a different type of work, not all together different, how could a life of a celebrity not involve beautiful women, pain, drugs? But what differs is that opposed to the usual signifiers of an artists suffering i.e. violence and tears, is that the psychology, is shown right next to the artist in question. This is done by life size models of what is troubling him; his doppelganger, his id, his devil on his shoulder -the point is to want fame, you must reject what you were and physically face the dichotomy every day. The conflict between the artist and the business man, the good or the bad is expelled to the surreal in this film. You see it without having to be told, this work is therefore somewhat removed from what you expect from the biopic. This film is not what you expect.

The audience ends up with a strange experience where reality and the surreal merge together into the traditional format, but, not quite. There is difficultly in attempting to review a film which seems as though it is about 7 films all tied up and drowsily, elegantly coming together under a veil of French cigarette smoke. The film begins in Nazi occupied France with Serge Gainsbourg as a child, this, is perhaps the most enjoyable segment of the film, it flows with ease and humour, the surreal fits perfectly with an infant imagination. The next portion is the adult Gainsbourg, more haunted by his childhood demons, but the haunting is a wonderful example of black humour and the torture of a soul by himself, not just by the drugs. In this film Gainsbourg’s vice appears to be women, and some of the most beautiful creatures I have seen on screen; Laetitia Casta who plays Bardot is every inch perfection, the women combined with smooth dialogue and archetypal French-ness plays out beautifully and easily. On the other hand, there are the songs… a man most notably famed for his heavy breathing with Jane Birkin is famed for this song for J’taime for a reason, the others are nothing, blips in the film which do nothing to propel the narrative, nothing to move the audience. The film can not have been made to demonstrate Serge’s musical prowess, the film acts like an experiment in storytelling and an experiment with the weird, with a few numbers thrown in. This is the flaw, the film doesn’t fit together, interjecting the likeable dark, jazz filled rooms with brightly coloured and uncomfortable moments of song and dance. They appear as vehicles to demonstrate the ups and downs of life but they remain irrelevant, other aspects of the film handle this with much more ease.

This film does not offer musings on the weight of fame, it instead shows a man and the affects of fame, through his own mind. Audiences are to watch, admire and infer. To be shown and not told is a relatively fresh approach, but not necessarily easy to follow. Although engaging and poetic, Gainsbourg begins to lull and drag as the epitomes of biopic emerge; divorce, violence, tears, until a decrepit shadow of a man is portrayed. The film decides to put on screen a man in a surreal world of his own, a man which mirrors the style of the film perfectly, flawed, but entertaining.